The Au Pairs

The three young women gathered

at the green park bench,

each lovely in her own way, in the

ways that women are beautiful.

Seated at the bench beside them I

couldn’t help but overhear their

European accents, that they’d never

met before. You are German, too?

the newcomer asked of one.

No, French, said the taller of the

three. From Montendre. And you?

—I am from Italy but I speak German, too.

And then the blonde, the German,

said something in her native tongue.

They all laughed at this delightful

little secret. I smiled in happy envy

at the fleeting instance of being a

foreigner in my own country.

Their charges, the children, I mean,

careened across the playground,

oblivious to this moment and its

import, if any might be ascribed.

As practiced as mothers, perhaps

more patiently, even, the au pairs

corralled the children with

gentle calls and admonitions.

In this small park that held the 

world, the women shared at least

two languages, their youth, the
responsibility of caring for

wealthy people’s children, and 

the mixed joy of a new country.

Maybe a certain worldliness, too,

that I—a well-traveled stranger—

can only resurrect from memory,

sitting instead now on a

park bench as my daughter

climbs the playground set,

imagining herself a great explorer

in distant, undiscovered lands.

c. 2012, Martin A. Bartels (working draft)

Part of my new collection, “Unlanguage.”