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In the streets, the air is tight with heat.
Bodies wander around the rubble. Dying screams disturb the air.

The boy’s t-shirt clings to his back. The woman’s shopping tumbles out
over cobbles.
 
This morning – a tiny ripple in the scheme of things.

A pigeon’s cooing echoes in the smokey air.

Our anniversary of arrival soon and you said not to bother.

Not to bother making a song or dance about it.
No heart felt effort here.
 
I push out, go back to the beginning
and wonder when the dreams of making good died.
 
The crowd rolls down the slope. Fears bounce over the edges.
Black bodies seize their freedom.

The space we’ve claimed smelling
of nutmeg and winter is just out of reach.

You in our grey damp rooms, your fishermen hands –  
retrieving, stripping, cleaning, still.  
 
Perhaps you take hushed comfort in our cramped rooms
before another layer of flesh is skinned through this harsh white world.