What London Gave Illinois

At 21, I toted my Mormonism with me to London
where I lived in a flat with gentle Mormon Brits.
They taught me blending in: speak softly, forget white socks,
smash peas with knife against the back of a left-hand fork,
stab meat palm down and calmly jab it up toward the lips.

They shared smart gospel testimonies in crisp accents,
long Häagen-Dazs walks in Leicester and Trafalgar Square.
But beyond their requests for Oreos and Jiffy Peanut Butter,
I’m not sure what I gave them. Still, the trade was fair.

To 30 Coleraine Road and a 31 year old
Northern Irish Mormon, I gave my hard cider chastity.
In exchange, he gave me black stirrup pumps
from British Home Stores for the feet of my new body.

I wore them shyly. I wore them to church—Britannia First.
Then I wore them home, clapping Decatur’s red brick streets.
I wore them in a blues bar and later slid them off like Illinois
in my childhood bedroom where I called that lisping boy
from Pana I’d always wanted and gave him the London in me.

2013