In her shoes

We traveled by taxi into a city

caught in a frayed net of light.

I a girl in grown up’s shoes,

ready to take the world, remake it.

My mother was selling me the house she built, for half-price.

Her eyes sad, she told me she was glad for me.

This gift the biggest of so many, while an ocean of morning air

washed through us, tides of years gone by, and not returning.

Time, a child, tugged at my hand,

pulling me back, as still we moved forward,

across the road to the lawyer’s, the green man flashing

and the cars that stopped to let us walk.

17.3.10

Moore Road

There are parallel worlds to this one. Driving,

I view Durban sun rising up the ridge from over the sea,

like a bright garment put on for the day,

and the air already liquid with heat.

Memory is a glittering fish

darting through the shallows.

When I was small, the world was magic, green,

impossibly full of light, longing.

The limit of adulthood lifts at times,

like scales found on the eyes of snakes,

transparent, allowing a vision

of all you thought you’d lost.

Like now, the viewed city gleaming, a rough pearl

asymmetrical, opalescent, what it is,

and not smoothed to fit a mould.

Set it on a silver ring, I’ll wear it.