immigrant
You ask if I can live with you.
Yes, if you really want me to.
But it is not the same for me.
You can leave any time,
stand on your stations
in an inch of shade
turning your back
on the other end of the platform,
jingling the change in your pocket, quietly.
It’s not the same for you,
marvelling at my sky
my cloud shapes
flying to the Cape
tramping my bush
smelling my juice
under your hat
under your sun cream
under your education,
it is not the same.
You want to stay.
You say yes find a way
between your gates
and dogs and armed response
straight into clear air
mountains
the light dance of sunbirds
find a way from your soft rain
and those soft options.
My ears open
and my hands my own hands
burning in the sun
are steady
as you ask to stay
and yes
is what I mean to say.
====
restaurant
There, where the toilets are just clean enough
and music beats from the kitchen
behind the window
and one of the taps doesn’t,
and the massive roll of paper
in the corridor
spins unhurried on a rusty frame
like some farm machinery
in the corner of a barn,
I find it, for a nanosecond,
billionth of a second, gone.
====
house move with sea urchin
fits into me so perfectly
snug into palm
thief among thieves
saw something lovely
took it from
dusty with sitting
on a shelf
where should it land
which box
which jar
sea hedgehog
fitting in my hand
teach me
to leave things
where they are
====
Poetry: Candy Neubert
Image: Liana S Unsplash cropped