"Foreign" by Carol Ann Duffy

Foreign By Carol Ann Duffy

Imagine living in a strange, dark city for twenty years.
 	There are some dismal dwellings on the east side
 	and one of them is yours. On the landing, you hear
 	your foreign accent echo down the stairs. You think

5 in a language of your own and talk in theirs.

 	Then you are writing home. The voice in your head
 	recites the letter in a local dialect; behind that
 	is the sound of your mother singing to you,
 	all that time ago, and now you do not know

10 why your eyes are watering and what's the word for this.

 	You use the public transport. Work. Sleep. Imagine one night
 	you saw a name for yourself sprayed in red
 	against a brick wall. A hate name. Red like blood.
 	It is snowing on the streets, under the neon lights,

15 as if this place were coming to bits before your eyes.

 	And in the delicatessen, from time to time, the coins
 	in your palm will not translate. Inarticulate,
	 because this is not home, you point at fruit. Imagine
 	that one of you says Me not know what these people mean.

20 It like they only go to bed and dream. Imagine that.