Culture Shock

She was an exchange student
Coming to the United States
From the sophistication
Of cosmopolitan Tehran
Where the latest in European fashions
Were very much in vogue.
She was used to the hustle bustle
Of a major city,
The noise of traffic,
And the throngs of people
From all corners of the globe.
She was a fish out of water
When it came to life
In a small Midwestern town
On the banks of the Mississippi River.
The quiet was deafening!
Half the population
Was housed in a nearby penitentiary.
The greased back hairstyles
Of her schoolmates,
Had gone out of fashion
A generation before back home,
And not a single fast food chain
Or ethnic restaurant
Had yet opened its doors
In that community.
For a suave big city teenager,
It wasn’t the end of the earth,
But she could see it from there.