XENOPHOBIC

An afternoon in April:
sunlight patterns the bedroom walls,
finding unlikely kinship
in white reflective furnishings.
Children cycle past outside
racing each other,
their voices bouncing
off the worn grey asphalt
that is our street. leylandi trees
mark the boundary of our garden:
this sanctuary in the midst
of a grim urban landscape, impersonal
and intimidating, peopled with strangers
we assume to be potential enemies.
Hiding within the family tribe
has always been the safest option.
So we sit indoors, safe,
observing the outside world
through our computer screens,
like goldfish peering out through aquarium glass.
We remember the places we have visited,
or have passed through
in silent terror of alien customs
played out in foreign lands.
When we are recalling past lovers,
childhood friends now moved on
or present neighbours,
it doesn't show:
our faces remain rigidly blank.
At dusk, streetlamps light up
all across town.
An escaped pet budgerigar lands
on a branch of our sumach tree
and peers in at us
through the now illuminated window.
And we become the entertainment: absurd jesters
performing meaningless survival rituals
in our xenophobic prison.
But, unlike this small yellow bird,
we will never be free
of our debilitating mental bars.