The Reddest Eye
A short walk to urgent care
down la rambla in the morning
sun of Canaria
where the lady at reception
would have turned me away
because I only have German health insurance
if I hadn't been able to talk to her
in Spanish and tell her I didn’t care
if I had to pay cash,
that I wanted to see a doctor anyway.
It is not a small feeling of success
to be able to go out into the world
around you, in any street or shop
and just to be able to talk
to people (like I can’t yet do in Berlin,
or at least don’t feel like I can).
The doctor was so nice
that I told her that and I learned
she was not from the Canarias at all
but from Venezuela and that her parents
were Italian (which means
they were either Nazis or Jews?
Here I am letting my ignorance show)
and after I told her I was from Chicago–
to which she purported was a beautiful city–
but that I had lived in Madrid before
and that I was living in Berlin now, said:
we are citizens of the world.
And I almost started crying
out of my red, infected right eye.