Let’s consider the ribbons of houses
garlanding the city. They are
a string of unsettling settlements.
So many futures folded into their
foundations.

To whom does this house belong?
Can we defend our home with the
scraps of paper that were printed
by an intern in a corridor?

What authority does that printer give
to the inked stains that address us? And
where do the paper and the ink come from
anyway?

It seems that all of this is haunted
by other people, other places and other living
things.
And we are ghosts in our home,
shades blocking out
the daylight.

Scratch the surface and the underflooring
is a shattered mirror,

we can only guess at our
reflections.

These wooden floors, bearing the weight
of domestic comforts were lifted and
hoisted off ships at dock.

Chance encounters
between builders and merchant seamen
laying the ground for a million
steps, planed planks uprooted and
stacked.
Their ravaged roots fallen in defeat.