BEYOND TRANSLATION

Neither
my driver
nor I speak
the same language
while he listens to
a morning radio program
in his native tongue.
He laughs out loud
and I don’t have a clue
until the show’s host
produces a fart machine,
interrupting his guests with it
enough to have the driver
and me laughing
at a beautiful language
we both can understand.

Kevin Ridgeway is the author of Too Young to Know (Stubborn Mule Press, 2019) and Invasion of the Shadow People (Luchador Press, 2022), in addition to over a dozen chapbooks and split books.  His work has appeared in Hiram Poetry Review, New York Quarterly, Paterson Literary Review, Gargoyle, Slipstream, Chiron Review, Nerve Cowboy, Heavy Feather Review and San Pedro River Review, among others.  A Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee, he lives and writes in Long Beach, CA.