Poem by Shakthi
this city is a body remembers what it felt like to arrive
here for the first time, curious and displaced.
she wonders at the roots of our fears:
those assumptions which make islands out of people.
as she breathes, her lungs fill
with the ghostly sediment
hovering above our cleanest streets.
and she recalls once more
the feeling of arrival,
of being a traveller
in her own city.
she isn’t so good at tolerating, integrating and winning the values debate.
she might not even pass her own citizenship test.
she’s been too busy
talking to people
and charting one of those maps you might find of us,
stitching our ways across the city.
is to share her map of sydney, with yours.
