Once upon a time, I knew an American consular officer who loved to be tied up by women of his host country. He would go out the same night for drinks with a different girl, and once this was on Thanksgiving. I am not immune to romance in a politically tumultuous foreign country. Insurmountable language barriers can be more romantic than talking, and the strain of commitment is minimal when, any day, your true love might be hit by a car on the sidewalk outside her apartment or jump out of a window in his only pair of pants. There is always the safety of Ohio to return to. There is always the smog-thick pathos of Shymkent. There is never having to say you’re sorry in English, and no matter what you say, every word means something else.

Julie Gard’s

collection of prose poems, Home Studies, was winner of the 2013 Many Voices Project and was published in 2015 by New Rivers Press. Previous publications include two chapbooks, Obscura: The Daguerreotype Series (Finishing Line Press) and Russia in 17 Objects (Tiger’s Eye Press), as well as prose poems and short fiction in 50 or so journals and anthologies. She lives in Duluth, Minnesota and is Assistant Professor of Writing at the University of Wisconsin-Superior.

Author’s website: www.juliegard.com