so here I stand again
observing certain ladies
in the small alley
across the street from Spinoza's house
remembering
how some ten years ago
some of us landed here
‘round about the same time

in desperate search for jobs
craving with every limb those ripe fruits
of the democratic West  
(or however you'd like to put it);  

these ladies in the context
of monetary and flesh exchange
and myself pursuant to articles, paragraphs and subparagraphs
of my esteemed Institution.

and at the very first sight
I begin to realize
that even after a decade
wasted in a foreign country
we still have a lot in common:  

flexible working hours
suspicion towards other foreigners
and similar modes
of prostitution.

I see the absent-minded Heloïse
still weaving some embroidery
and Alina
swiftly changing stations on her red transistor-radio
and Amra and Jammila
laughing uproariously while patting the bald head 
of their big black friend

while I push
my bicycle
(like a wheel of destiny)
thinking how
from Spinoza's window
all the way to the last booth with red lights on
at this very moment
freely and easily
blooms and opens  
(on the whims of Euclidian geometry)
a thousand flowers
of some invisible Bermuda triangle
composed of human petals
dipped deep in the mud
of a so-called "better life"
like stones trapped in the kidney channels
of our third-world bodies
which we dragged over here
like decanted sand boats from our Byelorussias, Ukraines, Ugandas,
Kirgisias, Ghanas, Romanias, Croatias ...

only to end up staring at each other
in silence like those eels
in the aquariums
in Chinese restaurants.

and even if somebody would
turn us upside-down
slap us all over and connect us
to some cosmic polygraph
he unfortunately would not be able
to squeeze out
a single line
from Baruch's great Ethics.