Praha 37, or a Piece of Poetry

In this city, I have learned that familiarity
is a privilege. Czechs don’t care what’s up,
how you are, how it’s going, or how you’ve been
unless they’ve known you for at least a year
and know you can be trusted. So when I fall in step with a
man twice my age, and he asks me how I am,
I dodge the question and his pace, pretending
not to hear and slipping out of view into his shadow,
his drawling “jak se mas” clinging to my eardrums
like the voice of the man my father’s age
asking if he could buy my sixteen-year-old-self “just one drink”.

But as I slip away from him, my eyes slip from their straight path
and suddenly, I catch sight
of a plane crossing the open sky.
And I want to point like a little kid and yell
“Look, plane!” because it’s proof that I’m not trapped here –
the escape is right above me, if I want it. But I don’t want
to leave on such a day, when even the old communist buildings
seemed just a little less gray, and the sky dusts off her old blue skirt
and puts it on for fun, just to flirt a little with the sun
and me. Prague is looking beautiful today,

and the streets are full of whistles and catcalls.