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