Be-A-Kiss Poem by will kepich

Will Kepich
English II Prep
Period 10
November 1,2011

Her name was Nadien, not Nadine or NayDeen, like a horse neighs. NehDEEN with the emphasis on the DEEN. Her last name was Beukes, pronounced like Be-a-Kiss.

She came to be my AuPair from a town called Windhoek in Namibia.
Before she arrived, she asked my mom if all women in the U.S. looked like Pamela Anderson from Baywatch.

Pamela Anderson was skinny, blonde and beautiful.
Nadien was plump and pillowy; obese, really.
It didn’t bother me. She was fine just the way she was.

We spent days on end just playing Monopoly. Whenever or wherever we were, we played Monopoly. I was always the cowboy and she was the ship; like day follows night, we were predictable.

Once during a tornado warning we went into the basement and played Monopoly. While the sirens wailed, the wind blew and the rain pelted the windows, we pranced around the board never thinking of the danger outside. The cowboy and the ship.

She cooked chopped up meat for us; steaming on the stove with tomatoes and onion, its smell drifted through the house. We said it was the Namibian version of a sloppy joe. She called it mincemeat.

We used to go to places like Navy Pier and play mini golf. Christmas was extra fun the first year because she had never seen snow. She didn’t know what it was. Plus she made a huge fuss out of every gift she got. They didn’t get so much in Namibia.

She is back there now. We still talk but on facebook mostly. No more Monopoly. No more mincemeat. Just great memories and a special friend far far away.
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