The woman at the coffee shop looks
at me suspiciously right after I ask
for toast. Is it the minted tan
and kohl bracketed eyes that
have suddenly claimed my right to speak
the language I ordered in?

If I have weapons that threaten her
perception of reality wider than the
one she knows, then these weapons are
my eyes that repeat a skin colour
she cannot understand.

She hands me my bread in
Mandarin, a bullet she fires I must
bite or dodge before I am denied.

My manners debut in English:
since a language cannot bridge,
I speak another to hope it divides us further.