"COME WITH US" - a dreamer's nightmare
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Reader's Digest Review starts with sterile clinical white lab coats
"You have testicular cancer" - YIKES! leave clinic, turn
corner finding my way through tenements in large city
in Red China
- nobody speaks english -
I'm trying to get
to the harbor to board a ship (haven't seen "TITANIC");
from dark alleys to dark tenements.
A young Chinese couple offer their help: two doors
leading from their hovel -
just before leaving through one door
Chinese woman says "What is this round seed
in middle of other doorway?"
Images of my dad raking leaves.
Me crawling through culverts,
Mexican police in pusuit. Eastern European country
visiting my grandmother who's visiting
a friend of hers.
They suggest i go into a gift shop.
Nobody speaks english
- looking at birthday
and christmas cards in a foreign language:
woman walks up - "Please come with me."
Outside shop surrounded by six or seven
gray/brown trenchcoats with military caps.
"What are you doing in our country? You are under arrest:
come with us."
I've only been in their fucking country
for about an hour!
They pile into a jeep, drive off,
leaving me
to find the police station on my own.
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(c) Bagron Ragknees, 1998