Windward Review

Jeffrey Alfier
American Woman
in Warsaw
Again, too long at the Danube Bar,
she lets wine hurry her off
into the summer night’s drowsy air.
Over the Old Town cobblestones
she passes a young father holding
his daughter’s hand as the girl leans
to pick a flower the wind shook
from a stranger’s bouquet.
*
Tomorrow, the flight home.
She’ll wake to a hotel radio
in this city whose language
she doesn’t know, leave the room
to check out. Leave the radio
singing to its foreign self,
a tune in her own country she’ll hum
one night walking home in the dark.
Civility + You
51