Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth (mouthmark series)

I have my mother’s mouth and my father’s eyes; on my face they are still together.

She won’t let me hold her

now, when she needs it most.

She is a boat docking in from war,

her body, a burning village, a prison

with open gates

Sometimes it feels like someone else is wearing my body.

I’ve been carrying the old anthem in my mouth for so long that there’s no space for another song, another tongue or another language.

When I meet others like me I recognise the longing, the missing, the memory of ash on their faces.

I have my mother’s mouth and my father’s eyes; on my face they are still together.

In Love and In War

My Foreign Wife is Dying and Does Not Want To Be Touched

Conversations About Home

(at the Deportation Centre