Lyon, France 10/4/16 4:00 p.m.
Four black teenage girls,
hair sculpted in intricate artful braids,
shoulder hip bump bounced
along the cobbled Rue Sainte–Helene,
their giggled voices ricocheting
mouth to ear, exuberant for some
reserved excitement I could not know
and if I knew I could not participate.
A world lived in their language,
a culture in their loping gait, joie de vivre
in their enthused exclamations of delight.
I felt old, odd, distant, foreign, envious,
the border guards guarding the gate
to their native city of transplanted African joy.