afterthought

by Lesley Warren

I think I’ve made the world an afterthought

this improbable place that I call home.

It’s just a stage and I’m the show that’s playing

my life wound tight around me just like wool

and so I close my ears to outer crises

or at least the ones that have no human face.

And I haven’t worn my winter jumpers yet

(nice weather for November) 

And there’s places that I’ll go someday 

no hurry

they’ll still be there –

forests oceans beaches glades 

immovable as my childhood Welsh mountains –

glaciers coral reefs volcanoes

waiting for me 

until one day

they’re

not.

A translator by trade, Lesley Warren lives for language. Born to Welsh and Filipino parents and now resident in Germany, she writes extensively on themes of “otherness,” displacement, and identity.