I come from a long line of time travellers

—by which I mean, we all suffer from the chronic illness

of being elsewhere

—by which I mean, generations of gazes

locked on the yellow bird outside,

sipping from a puddle

that contains the whole muddy sky

—by which I mean at any moment,

I could be in a song, a mustard field, Calcutta 1856,  

a lover’s arms or the spiral stair of a DNA helix

—by which I mean my grandfather, stuck

in an I do that did not fifty years ago

—by which I mean beds wet, sheets soiled,

and vegetables growing cities of bushy, white fungus

—by which I mean short salary slips, empty passbooks

and wallets thin with change

—by which I mean I have loved people

before I could set eyes on them

—by which I mean my second cousin sleeps on the floor

of his condo with thirty outlawed cats,

subsisting on crackers to afford kibble

—by which I mean adult friendships built on trading in spider facts

—and lost to human truths

told long after their time

—by which I mean grief is a country

and we are its most faithful immigrants  

—by which I mean my uncle scrubs the sink at 2am

because microbes multiply overnight

—by which I mean a favourite spoon, a safe number

and a ritual squeeze of sanitizer before leaving home

—by which I mean our babies, born with their jaws pre-clenched

—by which I mean my little niece speaks of Egyptian queens

like she used to swallow pearls in vinegar with them

—I mean we’re always dancing across the double-edged blade of when

—I mean an obsession with stars and birth charts and

the constant dread of at least one calendar date

—the power to peek into ten futures and be paralysed by them all

—I mean speaking out of two mouths

with not enough room for a gasp

—I mean there are civilizations being blasted to smithereens

in my head

as I drink my morning coffee

—I mean the shrill song of here and now

always summons thunderclouds in my chest