Yusti Herrera reading ‘Borrowed Home’
VOICE HABITATS
By Yusti Herrera
MY FATHER
I turned my father into a hotel
With bedrooms in his toes
So they could come,
and come
To enjoy a well-deserved rest
I carved motorways in his thighs
And laid a runway on his dong
I dug his armpits for ores
And poured cheap lager on his navel
So they could swim,
and swim
In a pool of bile and blood
‘Who doesn’t like to burn
In hell from time to time?’
So they flocked,
and flocked
Blonde, flushed, bare-necked fowl
Past wintry pangs
To my paternal heights
And I pinned my good-old father
Flat like a butterfly
For their holiday delight
And I split his ribs wide open
Like a bone-winged gash
I dragged my dad’s pancreas
Out of their vista’s way
And I uprooted his liver
For their abdominal rave
They craved,
and craved
Mini-golf in his lungs
So I pulled,
and pulled
Till there was nothing
left to pull
But my father’s trampled skin
And when they yawned,
and yawned
At his poor throbbing heart
I just threw it away
‘Two-point-five stars
Such a terrible stench’
And so they left,
and left
Not to come ever again, dropping
Crumbs for a tip
They couldn’t exchange
I bowed and waved them farewell
And I couldn’t help but think
That if carcasses could feel
My dear,
dear father would be proud
BORROWED HOME
I’m from a dreadful place
Where there are no gothic cathedrals
Where the houses aren’t made
Of gingerbread, where the pigs
Dare to be black
A place I so disdained
And yet I fell
I must admit, for one of those
Shacks on the road to Taganana
Perched in a brown, bushed mountain
Of stray banana groves
And runaway mangoes
It had a roof
Ruffled with ruddy tiles
Like a smeared acute accent
And a buff, tiny little porch
With a view larger than the world
The kind built by a Pepe and scrubbed by a Lala
May they rest in peace. And their kids:
‘Why can’t you just sell it for more?
I’ll sign nothing at all’
And the bougainvillaea taking its purple toll
And the lava walls slowly
Melting back into soil
It was never mine, but
I couldn’t take a platonic love: I went
And found a flip-flopped
Old man who didn’t mind
Me meddling around, provided
I didn’t mess with the goats
Stepped on the leeks
Stole the fig-leaf gourds, his
Wife had called dibs, we
Claimed all we could
And as partners we squatted
All the elusive
Meanings of the word Home
And then I fixed a hammock by the kitchen door
And hanged ferns off the eaves
That didn’t fall off
And dreamt of render colours
Lilacs, maroons, and reds
Rocking on a faded chair
That soon broke
But then, that sharp day when I
Found the old man
Evicted, the goats
Dislodged, the leeks
Pulled out in their sleep, and the gourds
Severed before they could
Ripen into dessert pulp
A wire fence, a chain, a board
‘Private property’ a subtle slur
Next to the greater one
Of the JCB
And for me, who’d
Built so many homes I
Could never afford, who’d
Drawn windows pricier than my
Net worth
For me, eyes gulping broken panes
Wilting arms, rubble legs
And kneading my pain in an old
Washing stone
They’d thrown away