In Europe that summer, tourist
shops awash with midriff-baring
Britney Spears tops, painted
scandal matryoshkas of Bill
and Monica, Paula and Gennifer
and Hillary, ending with a cigar.
But at the grocery store,
no one made eye contact or bagged
my few purchases: three bananas,
two cups of yogurt, a small carton
of juice. Later, someone explained:
They must have thought you
were Chechnyan. It hadn’t
occurred to me. I mused on this
passing through streets lettered
in Cyrillic, emerging from the shadow
of a cathedral. Even the grandmothers
shuffling along, clutching their string
bags with arthritic fingers— they
didn’t see me. How could they not
know about my kind of dark?
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