Solitaire Poem by Joan Xie

So be it, not bad.
sit at the last booth near the fire exit,
order a jalapeno margarita, frozen, salted.
use up this morning, this entire morning and this
wholesome night. So kick me, wake me up,
ask me why I am here, a foreigner in a foreign land
while I am choked by a spicy seed of a jalapeno unwashed.

So be it, not bad.
change the shape like a moody cloud,
an elephant trunk, a horned deer or a hydrangea flower.
All imagination is grinding around the axis of being.
Not bad. Let the sky blacken its face.
Give me rain, two and three drops
wet those yellow lemons piled up by vendors.

A wanderer who left home many years
has acquired many strange habits.
She insists not to walk any numbered streets
and jumps over sluices like a fox.
She likes to collect tiny umbrellas from margarita drinks
but will never tell you what she uses them for.
A foreigner in a foreign land, a stranger among strange men.

So be it, not bad.
once she petted a butterfly for three days.
another time she exercised her triceps on the stairway.
To heaven, she has never dreamed, but to hell,
she is often cursed. So approach. Don't be afraid,
ask me the baseball score and celebrity shoe size
while I am swallowed by a loud TV with seven promises.

But not bad, not bad,
I have no problem to pull myself back.
So be it. No need to be the same as you, or you.
A foreigner in a foreign land.
A stranger among strange men.
A jalapeno seed in a swirling margarita. Hot.