to Anne-Marie
We’d have peace if we meet
at a cemetery, she says,
but once there graves open,
the dead ask for headlines.
The good news is that I am
in the same place as Moses
walking around life when
sands shift. I reach my desert
retouching roots that match
the colour of parents’ home.
I forgot where they live now;
as close as my skin, as far as
a memory from when I was five.
There must be a house nearby
where someone stays awake
to warm up my bottle of milk.
Instead of looking for it, I hold
a telescope aimed at the sky
marching past stray pebbles.
Maria Stadnicka
Montage: Claire Palmer