Now and then winter reaches across and reminds me
that this was always meant as a joke,
an alternative to Bougainvillea
and banana trees, laden
and alleys in Mombasa that we knew we shouldn’t take a chance down but it was so hot and we were too tired to go the long way.

Incongruous, those years.
The equator and knitting needles. Long afternoons and evenings spent waiting to grow up and leave, which I must have known would happen eventually.

Here I am, years later, in a sodden land, collecting warm lyrics,
mountains of images, to clog up my arteries
I used to watch the sky
Now I watch the screen
And houses with window ledges where Siamese cats lounge
like zebras in savannahs.

Sit in crowed cafes, Balkan beats blaring
The semi dirty glasses
The angle of the rain falling
My feet locked to each other like tongs
Under the chair