beginning with a line by Fernando Pessoa
It is night. It’s very dark. In a house far away
a red sun has drained into the sea.
From the city I left, the cold changed direction
over continents, became a season of heat
in a single night. I don’t remember a time
of departure, the titles of books I intended
to bring, or the last meal I ate. Palm leaves
prowl the walls. The only light comes from
the nearest shore where piles of garbage
are lit on fire, flames bright and quick, faded
to embers smoking for hours. Mustapha,
the man who drove me to this house
of cool tile and cracked mosaics fenced in
by brick, says I’m too frail for this land,
that I will chew red dirt blown into my mouth
by hot winds, that I will shrink from the pleas
of beggars, or orphaned children pulling at my skirt.
He told me not to travel south to the village
built with paper, where families live in
cardboard boxes sealed with dried mud,
lay their heads to rest on empty milk cartons.
A child drowned in a puddle there last week.
The things I thought I loved don’t matter.
The home I left is locked in a vague
memory surrounded by a wide moat. The crossing
was rough, and I can’t go back to that life.
In these late hours, thought ladders down
the years, selves dissolve in foreign places,
fear freeing me from the grip of identity.
I cannot remember the first time I heard
my name, and I remain awake, listen
for it in the earliest bird call at dawn.