WEBVTT

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"Colonialism."

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At intersections, I
knew to look both ways

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as she had taught
me, as she had known

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to look both ways at
the port of arrival--

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not to Ellis Island or to
JFK, but to the white blanket

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of my father, then back
to her mother, then away--

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so that when the single
summer we returned to the land

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she had left, and
the four of us--

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she, myself, my two
tanned brothers--

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stood below the
open Casablanca sun,

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waiting on a thinly-grassed
divider for a sliver to form

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within the traffic, the air
smart and nearly visible

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as neighbor boys pointed
down from windows--

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"Mrikani, mrikani,"-- and I
dashed through the exhaust

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of four lanes--

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not exactly a highway,
but still too wide

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to be crossing, and without
a crosswalk no less.

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She rushed to the other side
and slapped my backside hard--

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"Elash, mon fils?

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Why would you do that to me?"

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