Uncle leaves the door ajar outside,
dawn ricochets off the mountain faces
into the shop, kicking up everything left behind.
All the clothes hang by their nape on the racks;
dust sweeps up the shoes; nothing
touches the floor for fear of being buried.
The stray cats, who used to brush their fur
against the counter, charging each follicle
with enough voltage to cause a power cut
are gone. The shelves are staggered like terraces
sliced into the hillside, stacked with upturned
skull-caps, a row of empty tortoise shells.
Smoke climbs from a crack in the back window,
rings around the tops of the precipice
and rolls back into town as a nursery rhyme.
Beyond his elastic limit, uncle is prostrate
in the vegetable garden trying to find the right
frequency. The radio dial clicks like a clock
face; uncle looks back at the search light
tearing through the house;
echoes of his siblings stealing away in the night.
Fahad Al-Amoudi is a poet and editor of Ethiopian and Yemeni heritage based in London. He is the winner of the White Review Poets Prize 2022 and has been shortlisted for the Brunel International African Poets Prize. He is the Reviews Editor for Magma.
