My lyft driver and I

I find myself thinking of you, the way your words

slipped off your tongue and into the heavy air.

Our time together was brief and I could not

really look you in your eyes, yet I still

tried. You spoke of your daughter as if she was

an angel on this earth, a flower beginning to bloom.

You told me that she was going to be a doctor,

or something close to it. I have never met her, and

probably never will. Yet I see her so clearly,

in the way you form her smile with your words. We are

so alike, you and her and I. You hold out five fingers and say your English

used to be a level five. Now, about a three.

You laugh a laugh that only comes from remembering less of a language after

a decade of life away from home. You came here from Baghdad, for safety

and opportunity. The schools are much better here, they’re respected more and

I don’t disagree with you. I told you how I considered going to college overseas,

but was worried people would respect me less. I told you that surely,

your daughter would get into a very good college. Even though she is

only thirteen. A difficult age to be! We smiled at each other, through the rear view mirror.

I told you about how my mother left the country she was raised in.

I talk about her in the present tense, because times are already

hard enough without remembering that sometimes people die.

You ask how it is, over there. I tell you that it’s beautiful, that there are mountains

as far as the eye can see that the ocean looks big and bright and blue

and­—

I know, you say. But is there also a war?