wb :

A step out of arrival
and a foreign English’s eclecticness explodes in my face
like the spray of confetti at
a party of middle-aged women in pink tights.
This morning’s babble should please me more
but I now deem it unhappy variant—
though telling of home,
familiarity smacks like the mismatched attire of
a hawker whose tone demands patronage
to justify her lost sleep.


This is my country.
Open arms decked high with
consumer commerciality,
her once warm embrace now
exudes indifferent materiality as the cold
adorning charm she loops around my neck;
I hesitate
(but as the crowd presses closer,
and the scent of physicality
engulfs me in a swirl of designer perfume)
I join them, and let the mob
sweep me towards the
shopping districts.
In the background, music blares
from a store window and they chant,

“Welcome home.”