Foreign Exchange Student
They didn’t know what to do with me,
so they gave me access to the AV room.
I’d sit there for a few hours every morning,
watching VHS tapes of concerts
by Dire Straits and Sting.
Some days I’d go with the class to lunch.
I was partial to the fried rice
with the red pickled ginger on top.
In the afternoons (if not earlier),
I’d ride my bike around town,
stopping into the shops
to have my little conversations.
Nobody cared about my grades.
They didn’t count for anything.
And as I was the first exchange student
in this northern industrial town,
most people were more curious
than anything else, as if a movie
were being filmed in town,
or a plane had crashed on the outskirts.
In the end I learned to speak Japanese
better than the students who ended up
in school together in the big city.
If I wanted to talk to anyone,
it had to be in Japanese.
These days I would choose silence.
/ / /
17 April 2026
Charlottesville VA
Day 17 of National Poetry Month
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