Huis

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