Published: 15 April 2020
Last updated: 11 June 2024
'Tell me about the war again, I will listen differently, You see Nana, there’s this disease' WATCH MIRIAM’S POETRY READING
ROOTS
I’m sitting at your table again
The smooth round kitchen table
With the elegant gold swirls running through the glass
Papa is watching the news again
There you are by the sink
Cigarette in one hand, coffee the other
I watch the ashes fall
Tell me about the war again
Tell me now
I will listen differently
It all feels closer now
Like the roots of our tree can breath again
All the way back to Europe
You see Nana, there’s this disease
Dis – ease
Ease
Easy does it
It too shall pass, I hear you say
I going running now
I never ran before
But now there is an urgency
A fierceness to see how this body can move
When you were hiding in the convent
What did you dream Nana
I dream of panic
I dream I am breastfeeding
A baby I don’t know
I dream and I wake
Tell me Nana
Tell me a story
Tell me a joke
I’ll listen differently now
The world is so very different
