Huis

Annette O'Neil

I.

Your Dutch came out of the kitchen so much sweeter

Rolled in purrs and dusted in crisp consonants

Spicier

With French flourishes.

It leaves honey on your tongue.

I can taste it.

Your fathers’ names still line the streets

Cast in brass beneath a stone face that looks so much like you

And still your blood runs rooibos

And still you give “now” its magic names

And still you thrill to this beast-tramped veldt

Like the fathers of their fathers

Who first burned under this proud sun

And made it yours.

II.

oh, blue-eyed beauty

drape yourself in filmy white

just to let it fall

i came so you might

shake my heart’s tree with your bright

clamor of whispers

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