you make me stutter in every language I have

It is a cold night in a foreign country and I want
to go outside in the black of rural Germany and speak
to the river, to say
hello
to the ducks that are not called ducks and the water
that is not called water, to lay myself down
on the pebbles that are not called pebbles and watch
the stars that are always
the same, until they aren't.

I am awkward and
foreign and
nothing
like what you grew up with, and I am
not like the shining girls in the movies and
nothing like you expected, and
it hurts your ears to hear my stumbling
German, and you
keep writing back

my German gets better

the nights get colder as the shadow of the Alps gets longer
the snow thrown off like a wedding veil
from these peaks.
they speak thickly down here, you
speak thickly, you know
it is German that is not German, and they laugh
because from the Zugspitze, you can see the edges of the world.

this was beautiful to visit, and it would hurt too much to stay
with a kiss that is not a kiss and a smile that I confuse with laugh

Goodbye. Auf Wiedersehen.
Und nie werden wir einander wieder sehen.
And we will never see each other again.