At The Train Station Somewhere In Canada Poem by RIC BASTASA

and so it was evening
a Kenyan woman asks you if you are Chinese
and if you are married and if you have kids
& how many

on the pavement just below the bench
a white man is drunk
and could not carry himself back
on his feet

the Kenyan woman asks if you are waiting
for someone
and you point to the white man
who wriggles to signify that he still
hears both of you
talking about him

the train arrives and you both go inside
the Kenyan woman and you

you tell her that you are not Chinese
you are not married
and that you simply want to go back home

she says her teen age child is lost.