I live now in a haunted place-without remembered
ghosts—no bitter weeds, no webs of light, no single hair
curled sweetly on the mirror's glass, but one dark
If you think to be alone is to walk about in the rooms of
your house and hear the neighbours dying on their
terraces and see the evening busily gathering
You will hear it waking to the roar of a ceiling fan,
in the rustling of dry palm leaves, in pebbles pouring
from a lorry onto the dusty street. The
Wandering among twisted streets on long dry afternoons,
in those shrieking bazaars that are a conspiracy whispered
through the broken teeth of pavements, I am made
homeless by distance. I
My friends from the vast city drive to a dirty town at the
base of a hill on a weekend at the fag end of summer.
Everything is distance, the
I walk in my mother's clothes on the street,
feel the cool sweat wider my arms soak her blouse
timidly: shy, damp flowers of my sweat on her
The man who runs the sports goods store
that also sells old unopened books and
board games in faded boxes, sits with his
tattooed arms folded in the sun.
