Here he is again, the shabby Arab
in the paperbag hat, his face, his
faded blue work-clothes, his tattered
espadrilles floury with cement.

I know I have put him somewhere
into words. What words? And where? Wherever,
he returns and eyes me as a stranger.

With the windows closed against the muggy
grey of Missouri July, and my students
leaning over their busy pens—one
with her hair sweeping the page, another

tapping her tennis shoe, another scratching
her smooth pink knee—he has come back,
shuffling along behind the arc of desks.

He tugs back the curtain of the classroom
wall, the rows of atlases, the posters
that celebrate the Constitution, to reveal
the alley that leads to the vieux port.

The gutter trickles with white slimy suds,
and the sun slices a wall into ochre shade
and a dazzle criss-crossed with washing lines.

Girls, if you turn, you will see him pausing
under the banners of stiff shirts and pants,
and he will grin, and you will scream.
Yet he's so ancient he does little more

than pass his tongue over his reptile lips.
You are never too young to start the fight
for words to name him and to let him leave.