Home Poem by Arundhathi Subramaniam

Give me a home

that isn't mine,

where I can slip in and out of rooms

without a trace,

never worrying

about the plumbing,

the colour of the curtains,

the cacophony of books by the bedside.



A home that I can wear lightly,

where the rooms aren't clogged

with yesterday's conversations,

where the self doesn't bloat

to fill in the crevices.



A home, like this body,

so alien when I try to belong,

so hospitable

when I decide I'm just visiting