The Kindness of Strangers

The Kindness of Strangers

Water vapors coat the airplane's
exterior like cotton
filled inside the winter coat
I have forgotten to know
what it's like to wear; It's rainy
season where
the markets flood in
a matter of flash, the mothers
spread their tarps over their
stands with produce with names like
catahar, caramboa, white tea,
mangos, pineapples and papaya;
produce with names
with expensive tastes once you're
back in North America; yet
all I crave is the crisp and clean
juice of a Red Delicious, until
I'll discover how the Cashew nut
grows and I'll remember and
realize how long before my
meeting with it's mother could
once again be and
I look into the wrinkled eyes and
furrowed brow of the beggar I've
passed at least twenty times yet
all I can do is offer
my sympathetic smile.  But
maybe someday, I could offer
more, I think as
the rain continues to fall and
beat down on the corrugated roof as
loudly and as undeserving as
the children who run bare feet and
buck naked in the puddles so
deep, making it their personal
water park for
simple joy and amusement, until
their mothers shout from a distance
under their corrugated awnings and
tarps, where their fruit also lives as
the rain keeps beating and the mothers
keep shouting and the kids just
keep being kids.