If I think I hear my name
or an insult, I no longer turn.
If I imagine a rock thrown
I imagine it misses;
I've learnt to be a foreigner.
I walk upstairs, paper
folded under my arm,
and when the door is locked
I scatter the news on the floor
to save the landlord's varnish.
I say to myself: Seven Years
And One Night. I put on the record
from home and let it play all night
until the sadness seems foreign and cheap
and all that's familiar is the obsessive
loyalty of one deep scratch.