Tonight's Poet Corner: ¿Estás Borracha?

¿Estás Borracha?
by Belinda Roddie

"¿Estás borracha?" a bus-goer asked me
plaintively more than skeptically as I
dripped mucus across his armrest, dangerously
close to staining the sleeve of his Giants
jacket. I promptly forgot how to reply in his
preferred language, so I laughed and sprayed
a non-verbal negative response to his question
that I'm fairly certain he didn't quite fathom.

Disgusted, he looked at who must have been his wife,
cradling their five-to-six-year-old daughter in her arms.
She had the orange "SF" stamped on her cheek, the
proper temporary tattoo demonstrating an imposed,
juvenile enthusiasm for a game with balls and sticks
either in a man's hands or between his legs. And I
chuckled. And I spat some more. And it wasn't

until I was off the bus and halfway down Valencia
that I came up with a response that I so wished
I could have yanked from my soaked cerebrum
sooner. "No, no
estoy borracha. Sólo estoy contenta."

No, I'm not 
drunk. I'm just happy.

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