Taxi

At three in the morning
most cities look the same —
like the back of a taxi-driver’s head
on the way to the airport.

He also takes me places I’ll never see myself

A dive bar in Harlem,
where Dizzy Gillespie plays his horn
to a packed house

Or growing up in Somalia
one meal away from starvation
or enscription
or a lucky break in the new world,

Or the guy so Nigerian you can see Lagos
reflected in his eyes, who insists
he is American
and then shouts at the radio in Yoruba.

And Mr Patel, complete with Ganesha
swinging from the rear view
who asks me in a deep Georgian drawl
if I caught the Braves game last night.

And that dude in San Diego
who used to be a Java programmer before the bubble burst.
Now he sets his own hours and is home
when the kids get off the bus.

Most times, though,
at three in the morning,
we sit in silence, each of us thinking
of home.