"Migrant", Janice Heng
Years since, the suit has finally
begun to lose its itch. Each April here
the trees rediscover themselves
in an airborne blitz of petals, infectious
with news of closer warmth. Your sun
was always close, the air there
always damp with sympathy. One day
you'll stop thinking of it as your sun.
Just as you've accepted these seasons,
these other-measured days, this suit
and recalculated number of limbs. Look,
not even all the humans in this place
have learnt the language. One of your
borrowed face shouts at a different tone
to go home. Which none of you can:
the angry, the shipwrecked, and you
walking away from a collision
that isn't yours, a world that hasn't
become yours yet. Outside the trees
promising things can be made new.
And you, at least justifiably foreign.