Tokyo
Kia Groom (Edith Cowan University, Australia)
.
.
Tokyo is tidy,
coded in a cipher
I cannot crack.
.
I get lost
somewhere in Shinjuku
and see, on the street
settlements
.
of cardboard.
.
Not boxes but
buildings, that crouch
beneath bypasses,
like children in the shade
of this
illuminated city.
.
I stop
to see how the windows are cut
in and shuttered up,
curtains formed by plastic
bags, with animated faces
smiling, open mouthed.
.
I notice how
antenna jut
from insubstantial rooves
to pick up
what signal?
.
Plywood doors
secured by string
or locked bike chains;
and broken
umbrellas popped open and
arched
like the round hump
of an old woman’s back.
.
It begins to rain –
.
so I walk back.
.
.
Kia Groom has just received a First Class Honours in Creative Writing from Edith Cowan University. You can find her on her website.
