When we found our way back to what used to be our home

lanes still strolled from the church,
mud and weeds softening their sides, water still collecting in the ruts
that dawdled by the river, lugging that blue sky
clouds like workers carrying a new window
………….it was all still the same

the sign over the shop on the corner still said
‘milk and bread’, urns were still stacked on the side
there was still a little chair by the entrance
where the owner could sit when things were quiet
while flies dozed on the window ledge
………….they could even have been the same flies

in a yard somewhere, as always a child was yelling
whether in play or anger, until cut off
by an angry word from inside, admonished by
the silence that followed, the silence of a whole village listening
………….it was all still the same

there was still copperplate in chalk on the blackboard
at the school, we could still find our initials
carved into the desk tops that our teachers occasionally used
to knock some facts into us
………….amazing how it was all still the same

and the fence still leaned as if to catch
a passer-by’s gossip; and smiled at what it heard
through its missing palings
………….and that was still the same, too

and our house was still there, I recognised its stucco façade
untouched, the parlour at the front
as if we could still have just walked in the front door
………….and climbed the narrow stairs up to the bedrooms

from where a stranger leaned out over the rug she was beating
and shouted ‘Bugger off!’
at us, and then again as we looked up, startled
‘Bugger off back to where you came from!’
slammed the window down hard

………….and the village went all quiet again

**

Isi Unikowski lives in Canberra, Australia. He has been widely published in Australia, including Best of Australian Poems 2022; while in the US his poems have been published in the Atlanta Review, Avalon Review, New York Quarterly, Poetica, Slate and Verse Wisconsin. His first collection, Kintsugi, was published in 2022 by Puncher & Wattman, New South Wales.

P76 issue 9: Poetries of place/ displacement/ diaspora/ odyssey: On-line Edition. Table of Contents