Their eyes are clear like the diamonds they don’t keep as they watch us disappear into a gray cloud of diesel. We pass another Coca-Cola sign, another American car with American hunters who pay the parks in American dollars, clutching our day packs stuffed with anti-malarials and anti-diarrheals and commenting how the plains of the Serengeti remind us of Yellowstone. At our feet are statues of bare-chested women we haven’t seen and relics of religions that only exist in the Western imagination. We bring the children gel pens Made in China. As we say, they are poor.
Chelsea Ruxer is an MFA student at the Bluegrass Writers Studio. Her work has recently appeared in Hermeneutic Chaos, 5×5, and others.
A Quiet Courage 