I was having dinner last night at my favorite hamburger place here on a corner a few blocks up from the Rexx Theatre. I find I crave a hamburger 2 or 3 times a month here, perhaps it being some sort of longing not for my home country but the home I left behind many years ago where my father wearing this silly felt hat I bought in Freedomland (a theme park from my youth that, like my youth, no longer exists) grilled Sabrett hotdogs and these big, fat, greasy hamburgers in our backyard while talking politics with my uncles. I think this memory goes back to about a year before he died and is one of those memories I have where I was filled with love and a bit of awe for the man I almost got to know.
But the reason I bring this up is because hamburgers…

They heard me speaking English to the waiter while trying to understand what peppersteak “easy” was exactly and even after having eaten it, I am still unsure. But that’s getting ahead of myself, as usual, so I’ll get back to the two young women, one smoking a cigarette and holding it like it might bite and the other one, the one who does most of the talking, keeps playing with her hair and adjusting the shawl the establishment has draped over the chairs in an effort to alleviate the cold. And she asks, as I’m trying to locate the pieces of black olives in my Greek salad, “Where are you from?”

“New York,” I say, as I always say, thinking of myself as a NYer first and an American second, then add, “But I live in Istanbul now,” and don’t add that I’m looking to relocate.

It’s then the one…

this is not something
I do very often
much of what transpired there
lies dormant in my memory
except for grad school
and my friends then
and the boy scouts
but occasionally
faces surface
from my undergrad days
and one in particular
came into focus
because the doctor here
thought my inflamed foot
could be gout
which it isn’t
but the word conjured up
Jimmy Burton
who actually was the first person
I ever heard mention it
since he suffered from that
among other ailments
a young man grown old
long before his time
jimmyjimmyjimmy
what became of you
sleeping on the couch
at north grove c-16
playing rod mckuen albums
in the dark
playing old men on stage
being one in life
an usher at my wedding
that brillo hair of yours
almost tamed
how I could crack you up
every time I danced up
and down the staircase

A lone bird lands on a towering tree
having heard from afar of the gardens of Wu
lamenting the history of a thousand years
at sunset I lean against Changmen Gate

translated by Red Pine