Foreign Camaraderie June 24, 2009
Posted by ofernyc in Poems, Poetry, Uncategorized.add a comment
Foreign Camaraderie
The green goggles on my tenth birthday
opened a new world
at the kibbutz pool. Now entrusted
with vision of the surface beneath,
filling my lungs
and diving, lungs
and diving
deep into the three meter
blue, far beyond the limit
of other bobbing feet. Then—
a shoulder tap, a yellow boy, blond
American accent—
his golden cross sank, his necklace
lost, must have been
two years older and I
dive to my duty, my
brotherly love to this boy
I’ve never met. I dive
and find on first try the shiny gold
treasure, proudly put it back in the boy’s hands
and on to my next task
as keeper of the deep.
Few minutes later another tap,
yellow boy waving his hand
holding a finder’s fee—must have been
a week’s candy worth,
which I cannot accept
for duty and for pride. I turn my back to him,
fill my lungs
and dive, lungs
and dive into the silence
where the boy’s pleadings
will drown. In a different world
we could have been friends—
could have cannonballed together,
play on the grass, eat watermelon
with dripping faces, but he is very white
and different, his money
foreign, his words strange, and he keeps walking
as I swim back and forth, back
and forth, and now I know
he’s in my debt, forever maybe,
and when we grow up to be soldiers
in the next unexpected war
we’ll meet in battle, and as he leans
his knife against my chest
his cross will drop and dangle
and I shall know he is my brother
and he will know my face. Yes—
I will save his gratitude for then.
