Carol Ann Duffy

Foreign

Imagine living in a strange, dark city for twenty years.

There are some dismal dwellings on the east side

and one of them is yours. On the landing, you hear

your foreign accent echo down the stairs. You think

in a language of your own and talk in theirs.

Then you are writing home. The voice in your head

recites the letter in a local dialect; behind that

is the sound of your mother singing to you,

all that time ago, and how you do not know

why your eyes are watering and what’s the word for this.

You use the public transport. Work. Sleep. Imagine one night

you saw a name for yourself sprayed in red

against a brick wall. A hate name. Red like blood.

It is snowing in the streets, under the neon lights,

as if this place were coming to bits before your eyes.

And in the delicatessen, from time to time, the coins

in your palm will not translate. Inarticulate,

because this is not home, you point at fruit. Imagine

that one of you says Me not know what these people mean.

It like they only go to bed and dream. Imagine that.

Delicatessen – магазин, специализирующийся на торговле иностранными продуктами