No binary between death & life;
no certain end. A continuum.
A tile buckles
loosening space time;
you can pull it back
feeling its cool against your palm.
Time flops out from the cavity,
like a paper map laid flat;
paths marked in coded colours.
Countries as years; cities are hours.
In the foreign present,
new world spices burn my tongue.
Weird music spills from sleek cars in thumps.
I lean into that map, set myself
on the yellow path back to 2001:
home country. Its scent of weed
smoke hot in Gib’s red Fiesta.
We were all alive then,
nodding at garage lyrics
played over pirate radio.
Streets unrazed; familiar.
The air spoke our own language.
Katie Beswick is a writer from south east London. Recent poetry has appeared in Rattle, The Waxed Lemon, English: Journal of the English Association, Ink Sweat & Tears. Her debut chapbook is Plumstead Pram Pushers (Red Ogre 2024). Her forthcoming hybrid book of memior, poetry and art criticism is Slags on Stage (Routledge 2025).
