ARRIVAL
by Carl Auerbach

After I left here
to travel there,
After I took a taxi
to the airport making sure
to show up three hours early;
(it was driven by a man
from Egypt, not from here):
After I sat for twenty-four hours
in airplanes and in airports,
changing planes and watching
the color of the skins
change from white to black,
heard the language spoken change
from English to French
and Kinyarwanda and Swahili,
After I had silently endured
the fat man sitting next to me
whose sleeping head
intruded on my shoulder;
After I had listened to
self-improvement mp3s
until my mind went blank,
watched the TV on the plane—
at first the serious drama
then action adventures
and then just sitting in my seat
knowing that time would somehow pass;
After I had struggled
my way through customs,
and waited till my suitcase
which I worried would be lost
finally showed up,
having been so heavy, so packed
with emergency provisions,
it was unloaded last,
After Eugenie from the embassy
took me to my hotel;
after Joseph carried my suitcase
to my room
up endless flights of stairs
(how did he do it?
he was so small,
and it was so overweight);
After I checked the room
to see there was hot water,
and decided to lay down
and unpack later
and took an ambien
to get to sleep;
After I learned to say
yego—yes, and oya—no,
and ufite amazi—do you have water,
After I looked out the window every morning
and saw the houses
on Rwanda’s thousand hills;
After the desk clerk learned my age
and began to call me father;
I realized I was there.
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Carl Auerbach’s work has appeared in The Baltimore Review, Hawaii Pacific Review, Nimrod International Journal, Third Coast, and many other journals. Three of his poems and a short story have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. He lives in New York City, where he has a private practice of psychotherapy.