Glory Ho

Seconds between stops,
shuffling, coughing, wheezing
dependable as a postman
with the indignant, retro charm of a mesh cap.

I’ll be home soon.

Orange like a powerflower on the outside
Green velvet pulp inside
Hot, liquidy, but livable, like a womb
Fifty cents for the ride.
Photo ops are free.
Public transportation at the cutting edge of mediocrity,
ironing garbage along it’s sticky path.

It will take me home.

Calm and so still
An office small and suffocating like a confessional
Fishbowl walls instead of woodgrain
A 70s science fiction film dashboard of buttons, levers and little plastic hula dancers
Tarzan rope from behind
Soft smoke that’s too tired to drift away.
Two liter bottle of off-white water to soak down the cigarette.
A full size towel, the Hitchhikers advice.

He will deliver me.
***********************************

I sit, helping Bulgarian grandmothers up the steps.

Just a few more blocks.

I’m at the roof door.
Sweating hours before.
But a chill has touched down.
It doesn’t belong.

“What are you doing here?” I ask.
But the wind is whistling to his own invisible Ipod. No one answers me.

But I know. I know what comes when extremely hot weather patterns mix with extremely cold weather patterns. It means danger. It means words across the bottom of the TV screen. It means the sound of a train and the woosh of the Mississippi soaking the wall of our house.

It means tornado. A shake up. A change.

The pink flowers of my summer dress huddle, attempting to take cover,seeking more time in bed, more sleep. But my skin is up at once, stretching toward the next adventure, bursting through those flimsy lycra blooms in an orange-peel-feeling pattern of goosebumps.

It knows best.

Yes, Andrea, you exist. You are here, it says.
I nod.
I stand.
But I can’t move.
Not yet.
I’m not quite finished.

The sky is a silver helmet on Bulgaria’s rippled and red-roofed head of curls. The head is shaking with laughter or tears?

The rain.
The dusky hallway with closed doors, pursed like vertical lips.
The circa 1940 elevator with its open-faced walls now slid still

They are all frozen. They wait for me to move first. I am in charge.

Downstairs thirty volunteers who have become something like cousins to me by now are wondering if this can really be over and inside I’m rushing up to meet that thought too and for a few seconds I stand refusing to move from this spot ever, ever, ever, because isn’t it fascinating how your identity is clearest when you juxtapose against something so very different from yourself and why oh why would you want that feeling to end?

There on the top floor with a banana in each hand.
Watching the storm.
Feeling Peace Corps end.

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A spa in a barrio. . . where did I think it would be?

Black birkas stuffed with women, trapped in sunlight splotches,
asleep on the davenports
wooden stalls that creaked when I crossed the floor
What was I supposed to do?
A scarf-tied, brown-toothed baba would become my red-pantied bather
getting down to skin,
Yes, its okay to leave your purse. And your watch.
it will be okay, I promise.
this way, said her eyes, the arches will guide you
a Turkish toilet with a water bucket for sprinkling, gravity-defying, up into my folds
Then the bath room. Two words.
only me and my body and the marble.
not the smiling red pan but a green frisbee for scooping.
she demonstrated.
I mimicked.
she disappeared.
Soft warm water came from the walls, dripped and splashed and spoke in streams
I tried to listen. All I heard was. . .stay.
on the square stage, edges soft from the bathers before, I waited
Sunlight slid through the ceiling holes to warm my soul.
I felt.
I was hand-washed like linen on a legen, fists, loofah and fingers in a fast tarantella
It was her job.
a kind of pragmatic intimacy in a land of Islam,
they danced together, stepping on each other’s feet the whole song
It hurt. It helped to cry. I was shedding. . .
my dead skin in small little scrolls across my flesh
Lids closed. Lids open. . .
I remember. . . . thinking about nothing.
It helps me to begin again.
Cleansed with water, soap and submission.
I rose to rinse.