portraits of red and grey #19 by James Morehead
July 3, 2011
portraits of red and grey #19
by James Morehead
for one day we have run out of postcards to visit we wander without watches or schedules through the shops and streets of alma-ata sidewalk chefs feed us greasy rich deep fried onion treats a candy cart offers us chocolate licorice cookies and vodka a steamy market free of five year plan prices families bartering fiercely foreign words fly past me i clutch my rubles tightly feeling the eyes of traders eyeing me closely i am overwhelmed by fish and fumes and step out from the market's canopy onto a gravel street i leave our guide's watchful glare behind dull rippled aluminum roofs peek over a hill i walk through blowing dust and the aluminum roofs change to paper thin houses our bus tour of mosques missed this sewery sprawling shanty town nervous and guilty i gawk at poverty feeling eyes at my back and my side from thin wails two young girls chasing each other break through my nerves their lightly brown faces smile and laugh they are tossing a ball back and forth across gravel the smaller girl stretches and reaches the ball flies over her head onto my feet i pick it up offer it shyly she reaches and grabs it they run away waving a story to tell a few feet farther a voice calls out from the darkness and turning i see an arm shoot from a doorway fearless ( maybe foolish ) i walk over and into a dark shanty doorway and stand face to face a young kazakhian before me he's my height and thin and tugs at my jean shirt i notice behind him ( his parents i think ) a man and a woman a thick stack of rubles tight in their fists i look in his eyes his young dirtied face i take off my shirt and stretch it out to him his head shakes and scribbles on a scrap of newspaper : 40 i look at it ( ready to barter ) 50 i write in large simple digits he turns and in conference replies 45 happy i circle it he smiles and nods rubles in my hand and a shirt on his back
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