Growing up with Guests

Now I think about it
I remember very well
the faces of the foreign students
who stayed
in our spare bedroom

How weird
to feel as though
I’d forgotten

most of them were French

there was Julia
she was the best
and instantly stands before me

A short bob of blonde hair
bounteous lips
creating a crooked smile
below a perpetual squint

and that huge back brace
she had to wear
a real monstrous piece of plastic

She used to play games with me
and thinking about it now
I see my own role

I was the baby of the host family
the youngest of four boys
- of course she was kind
she was a sweetheart

I never really admitted it then
but
a first crush for sure

And then there was the tall
brunette
not quite a swan yet
but getting there
her name somehow escapes me

I just remember big thick glasses
and train track braces
how she politely declined dinner for a week
because
we called it ‘tea’

my parents receiving a worried phone call
from the office
asking why we weren’t feeding the poor thing

and how she adored
my older brother
and his embarrassment at her advances
when they weren’t around
the rest of the family would speculate
on their potential union

I bet those two
thought they had it off in secret
but we knew
he offered her experiences not detailed
in the study abroad brochure

Then there was
the boy Fabrice
who always cried

He desperately wanted
my CD single of Hanson’s ‘mmmmmmbop’
and
even at that young age
I recall thinking
what a complete prick he looked
prancing in my bedroom
to that pop trash

Then there was Len,
or Lenin?
no wait – LENG!
he was from Hong Kong
and he stayed in his room all the time
hidden beneath long hair
making expensive phone calls

He had a strange sneeze
that sort of sounded like
a animal
being forced
to hiccup

One night
he approached my father in the kitchen
and asked
if he liked ‘cocaine’

well,
that’s how my father tells it
of course
it was just a mispronounced enquiry
into his culinary interests

How odd
to reach in and pull out
such details
such little lost memories

to dust off their faces,
their clothes,
their habits
- and what was to me then
their other worldly ways

Incredible to think
that they have no idea
how much they opened me up

how important it was
for me to know
about other cultures,
other countries,
other types
of freaks