I don't know who I'm betraying, my TV doesn't work,
but I must confess I saw Ed Snowden yesterday
on Chicken Street in Kabul.
It was only a glimpse
from the cracked, glaring window of a coughing taxi
near a dangling, pine-scented Quranic quote
but I'm certain it was him.
He was clutching a naked chicken over a laptop
and had the hunted look of a refugee
sort of like everyone in town
sort of like me
maybe that's why I couldn't help waving
and maybe that's why he nodded back
in the secretive, American way of those
gone to ground
and searching for a cheap hotel room
to spend the rest of your life
not going crazy in.
You've been a bad boy, Ed.
Me too, though in a less Boozy way.
So when all this toxic dust settles
which you will soon learn the UN calls "fecal matter"
let's get together at an undisclosed location and
shoot the shit.
I encourage you to let the postmodern goatee grow primitive,
and ditch those glasses. They are as deadly here as a square Humvee.
I'll teach you everything like a big brother
though you probably don't like Big Brother
call me whatever you want
I'm just another one who fell
between the new, prismatic cracks
and am searching for the old rainbow of
friendship untapped.
Rick Gray served in the Peace Corps in Kenya and currently teaches at the American University of Afghanistan in Kabul. He was a finalist for the Editor's Award at Margie, and has an essay that will be appearing in the forthcoming book, Neither Here Nor There: An Anthology of Reverse Culture Shock. When not in Kabul, he lives with his wife Ghizlane and twin daughters Rania and Maria in Florida.