Our Palimpsest City

Spent my decade convincing taxi uncles

I was no tourist.

But old eyes are wiser

In rear-view they knew I was fleeting.

I'd been taught a childhood

As foreigner minus origin.

So, untethered,

City planners fed me their

Lion-mane fish-tail taxidermy.

Told me that's what they stood for.

Told locals that's what emodied them.

Left their chimaera to

Feed on, digest, spit up, and smother us.

Did they anticipate

A generation of poets fumbling through a

Paper-thin nationhood?

Or was it all the novelty of

Solidifying a portmanteau into a people?

Thumboo's topless towers

Never finished their construction.

Rubble into chrome into rubble into chrome.

Each decade paves over the previous

For its routine shedding of every last expatriate.

The city that materialised just for me.

The city that forgot me entirely.