SANG ET EAU In my jovial youth I was never Chinese enough for the ventricles of my own blood, Nor born in Canada long enough to be candidly Canadian I say I'm sorey, I ask in Eh's And now here in the Other America My English is just perfumed enough that the other foreigners don't see me as one of them But Im pretty sure I'll never be One Of Them either Who's to say my mid, western accent is or isn't detectable? I'm not really a domestic! I explain at work in broken Spanish, And no one thinks I'm bilingual in any useful sense DIAS DE NUESTRAS VIDAS The semantics de cada semana Loony lunes et un war de mars I beg of mercurial Mercredis a merde of mercies Of parched pardons and of graceless thanks I don't really belong here I won't really be long anywhere But alone in the open prison of my borderless mind Flows like whitewater, There is no sabbatical from the constant calculus of how to speak to you So that you might understand me But I just fall ever backwards into rehearsed platitudes Just me and my absent, cosmic gods.