Full Circle at 27.

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Twenty-seven years ago
My mother was twenty-seven years old.
She tasted the cool dry air,
Foreign to her brown skin.

She made a home between Fawkner and Tan
A polished subversion from the
Jalan-jalan of KLC and Kuching.

And as her belly grew,
Strangeness subsided.
The fondness settled in.
She swapped a waddled walk,
For a stroller and wide-eyed
China doll. (Beloved).

Years between she built
A family setting roots
In a transcontinental cosmopolitan space.
Cold dust to subservient humidity.
Before finding permanence
On Gunaikurnai Land.

But twenty-seven years later
A few roads down the way,
I step out daily on the streets
Between Fawkner and Tan
As the twenty-seven-year-old daughter
Making a home in the same space.
Wrapped in the memory of hers.

by Asheda Weekes

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