M. E. Muir

Wordhaul

He’s called the porter
cleans the lift
ferries papers post protection

Italy is home for him
like my part italian dad
Livorno shipping to Lothian

deep shelter
foreign graveyards playing home
to Scots adrift

loose language
words that wander
to bandage alien limbs

hang dictionaries on washing lines
across the street
to sing their childhood songs

for in the end it’s words
that float them home
London to Leghorn

Leith to Livorno
their nautical porterage
so easily lost to living.