FEAST

I have eaten the city, taken in huge gobfuls

Of wintery lightfall on gray metal rooflines

Sucked out the marrow of tenement houses

And spat on the doorsteps carved deep by past feet.

I have plunged my lips along park benches and lake reeds,

Guzzled black swans under canopies of date palms

Savoured the creamery of frangipani lit gardens

And dined on old bus fumes pumping black in my veins.

My teeth have crunched over pink sandstone shorelines

Slaked down slime oysters drowned in sea brine.

Roving the wharflands my tongue goes riffling through gutters

Slurping on pubspill, licking tar from the street.

When summer arises I hunger for ferries

And gorge on the sails of triangular light.

City of ancestry, city of youth,

I devour my history, carve the corporeal roast.