On the Train

We ride the train at night. Store front signs flash neon onto our faces through the window. Red, green, blue in words we don’t know. Four foreigners crowded in with a hundred faces. They speak in a language we can only catch a few pieces of. We get stern looks from disgusted fellow travelers each time we speak. We travel in silence. But I know what they’re thinking. They don’t need to say it. I can see it in their anger. “You’d think if they are going to be stationed here, they’d learn to speak our language.” In our arrogance We think everyone loves us We are their saviors