30 Days Hath September 2016 | Day 2 | Information Desk by Soul Vang

Arriving Boston Logan Airport,

I approach Information Desk.

 

Surprised to see young lady

In white hijab. Smile at her,

 

ask where and when to catch

Peter Pan bus for Woods Hole.

 

She refuses to meet my gaze,

curtly nods me toward the curb.

 

I expect super courtesy–everyone

must look at her with suspicion.

 

Then, maybe she is super curt

because everyone must look

 

at her with suspicion. Maybe

for her, just entering this airport

 

lobby each day takes every energy.

And being nice is just something

 

she doesn’t have left to give.

 

Biography:

Soul Vang is the author of To Live Here, winner of the 2014 Imaginary Friend Press Poetry Prize, and coeditor of How Do I Begin?: A Hmong American Literary Anthology (Heyday, 2011).

Soul is a poet, teacher, and U.S. Army veteran. He received his Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from California State University, Fresno, and he is a member of the Hmong American Writers’ Circle (HAWC).

Soul’s writing has appeared in Abernathy Magazine, Asian American Literary Review, Fiction Attic Press, In the Grove, The Packinghouse Review, Southeast Asia Globe, and The New York Times, among others. Find more information about Soul and his work at soulvang.net.