To David Bowie Playing Over the Checkout Aisle

It’s those rare occasions I’m told I have a slight accent blended inside mine

though the source of it comes from the cuddles of the elephant song or the biltong that only few local butchers can get right or the stories of German Shepherds wandering around the farm to protect owners from soldiers or hearing a lament told over and over about the choice to buy jeans for the new school in the new country over buying anything but spaghetti or living off of forty year’s hard work from wealth to the gutter to wealth once again or just talking to grandparents

or being aware that you are only the second person in your family and the second person in this generation to have been born an American.

My mother and aunt and uncle and grandparents and some members up to the 1920s and 1940s are Americans from the sixth country closest to the South Pole. I’m a Natural American with a transparent ribbon tied

to this place.

It’s asking if I know where I began, if it’s Canada or Austria or Germany or Lithuania or the visa issued after Kristallnacht or the pogroms or never going slack to a master or never having the chance

to stay. to breathe. to have a single accent.

It’s those rare occasions I don’t have a brand to stitch together and wave.