The Viking and I never spoke the same language

He picked me up off the shore of a sick green ocean,
took me to his mud-brick home
and pushed two straw pallets together,
smiled hopefully.

For ten weeks
I let him bring me salted meat
and white silk corsets,
speak to me in soft, guttural tones
when I smiled. On warm days
he would walk with me
through his village, gesture to the women
who were with child
by mates they could not understand,
make me presents
of wilted wild flowes
held out in his pale, meaty fist.

-Excerpts from "My Summer With the Norsemen" by Margaret Bashaar

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