What We Do

perhaps not often enough?

Photo by Zac Ong on Unsplash

Rosamística the Lyft driver tells me she's
fifty-one, and from Paraguay. She has
some distance to go until she's fluent

in her adopted English, but smiling, she
tells me, "Yo soy rooner," and I don't
understand until she indicates a man

jogging up the road beside the snowbanks.
"Oh, wow! A runner! Diez quilometros?"
I ask. "Si! Si! Half mah-rah-tone!"

And she shows off her silver thermos
with the yellow-and-blue unicorn decal
of the Boston Athletic Association.

"Marzo, Nueva York! Half mah-rah-tone!"
"Buena suerte!" I venture, barely confident
in this much Spanish. Rosamística reaches:

"I ... train? But esa semana, mucho frio!"
She laughs. I nod, and say yes, and laugh.
We meet between each other's limitations,

and we enjoy a happy conversation.