Beatrice Carlson Metonymy (back to home page)

BAGGAGE,  le poème

I’m imported from an Old World of atavists

and anti-hijab jabs from enlightened Presidents;

continent of all-conquering currency.

My plane disclaims its Eurocargo on lava tarmac. 

Ethnic scraps scraped off the plate. Wide-eyed, 

I salivate at all this ripe-to-colonise space–

I drool like Conrad

when he saw the necklace-lain Congo jewel. 

Every Mangere mangrove here should move 

aside so I can stake my Tricoleur, because I’m 

insecure. I even heard the settlers changed 

their name to Pakeha

From European: such insurgency! A slap, a speed

hump, yup, but it can’t stump the rules of retrospect

which state that history, if sealed, congeals, and cannot 

be contested or repealed. So, I lug my luggage with me 

In case I must declare identity.

The hotel shuttle is a quarantine. Each passed pub’s 

a Celtic, Welsh embassy, but 

I’m excluded from the hubris, 

I’m just noxious: I’m ambassador 

for Ferdinand, Wilhelm, Windsor, Louis.

Decamping here, establishing my principality

I seed elms, firs, chestnut trees.

And hug each oak, so damp and England-old;

I clutch a pocketful of francs.

I long for the Louvre, thirst for the Danube.

But, needing residency, I put my Heineken aside and drink 

a Steiny, let my tongue absorb the way you talk: an accent of 

parrots, cheese, beaches, wheat, and frosted skis,

And islets, quad bikes, estuaries;

ANZACs, Allies swathed in Swanndri,

Baled hay, udders stuffed with curds and whey

Hawke’s Bay Chardonnay, manuka tea. I swallow 

spiteful eyefuls of the Sky Tower, a phallic affair, 

a contest which can’t compare

with my established Eiffel. 

I obfuscate my origin and carry just the core

of it. My flag, my baggage can be boxed,

unlocked upon May Day, 

Queen’s Birthday, Bastille Day, 

exhumed when we zoom in on the future,

when at parties, they’ll interrogate me: Am I Kiwi?

And my mouth’ll empty –

No rugby fealty or passport can speak for me.

I’ll search my carried baggage, check the mirror. 

Then we’ll see:

that Croatia, Polynesia, Asia

Are connected by a common sea

Uninterrupted by nationality. Europe was a squeeze

And so this refugee begs residency, because you need

My peeps’ cafes and without you, 

I wouldn’t have a space to breathe.

Michael Botur, Writer