Even the young clerk feels the need to say something witty

As he hands the brown bag with the twine handles

Over the counter to me.

He still talking to the man who was just ahead of me in line.

They are exchanging popular culture pleasantries.

He throws his head back and laughs,

And as he looks at me he cocks his head,

As if to say, "Don't you find that funny?"

He hands me my change,

And I put it in my pocket,

Smile at him and nod,

But the expression on my face never really changes.

I am a stranger in a stranger land.

I don't understand the idiomatic customs,

Living right here in the heartland of the USA.

I was born and raised here,

But I've never had a TV,

And that makes me a very foreign and exotic kind of dancer,

Even here in this Mediterranean deli, 

In Norman, Oklahoma.

-jenn