The Weight of Water by Sarah Crossan Page B

                       This time.
     
    A round man in a string vest appears.
    He shakes his head, wags a furious finger.
    ‘No,’ he growls. ‘Whatever it is you want.’
     
    Mama prods me.
    Pushes me forward –
    Me and my English.
     
    ‘We are looking for a man,’
    Is all I can say
    Because I am mesmerised by the puffy nipples
    Poking through the holes in the man’s vest.
     
    ‘Do I look like some kind of poofter to you?
    Get lost. Go on!’
    He slams the door
    In my face.
               Just once.
               HARD.
     
    ‘What’s a poofter, Mama?’ I ask.
     
    ‘A type of landlord, Kasienka,’ Mama says,
    Very sure of her English.
     
    II
     
    The old lady wants to help.
    She looks sorry
    For not knowing more,
    Tells us she will ask her friends
    At Tuesday bingo
    If they’ve seen Tata.
     
    Her head rolls to one side,
    Heavy with regret,
    And this makes me feel
     
    Very small.
     
    III
     
    There is no answer
    At the next house,
    Just drawn curtains
    And a closed wooden door
    With the paint peeling.
     
    IV
     
    When it gets dark,
    I want to go home.
    ‘One more street, Kasienka,
    Then home. I’ll make bigos,’ she says.
    But Mama misunderstands.
    When I say home, I don’t mean
    The Studio.
     
    V
     
    She is too tired to make the bigos,
    And throws together cheese sandwiches
    For dinner instead.
    Then she unfolds her map
    And marks the streets we have searched.
    ‘It could take us for ever,’ I complain,
    Though not too loudly,
    For fear of pinching Mama’s mood.
    ‘You in a hurry to be somewhere else?’
    Mama asks
    And goes back to the map,
    Leaving me to my pessimism and
    French homework.

Kanoro
     
    Kanoro lives in our building.
    In the next room.
    He shares a bathroom with Mama and me.
    But he is not a nasty person:
               He is beautiful.
     
    He is blacker than anyone I have ever met.
               Skin like
               Wet ink.
    And he scares me,
    Until he smiles:
               Pink,
               All gums,
    A smile that makes his eyes twinkle.
     
    In Kenya he was a doctor.
    ‘For children,’ he explains.
    Again the smile,
               The gums.
               The twinkle.
    In Coventry he is a cleaner
    At a hospital,
    Like Mama.
    ‘I like to work in hospitals,’ Kanoro says.
     
    Mama laughs:
               ‘They think you are nothing,
    These receptionist women and porter men.
    But you are better than them;
    You are a doctor,
    And they don’t know it.
    Ignorant English.’
     
    Kanoro shakes his head
    And like stars at dawn
    The twinkle disappears.
    ‘It is Kanoro who is ignorant,
    If he thinks he is better.
    There is honour in all things,’ he says.
     
    Mama winces, then smiles.
    And in her smile there is an
               Inky glint.

When I Go Swimming Again
     
    The staring boy is there,
    Sitting on the tiles
    With his feet in the water.
               Kicking.
     
    I hurry to the other end of the pool,
               Head down,
               Hands hiding my chest,
               Planning to dive in,
               To save myself.
     
    But somehow I stumble
                       And fall,
    Making a mighty
     
               SPLASH
     
    That attracts too much attention.

Mistaken
     
    When Mama said,
    ‘We’re going to England,’
     
    I didn’t see myself
     
    Alone.
     
    I knew I’d be different,
    Foreign.
    I knew I wouldn’t understand
    Everything.
     
    But I thought, maybe, I’d be exotic,
     
    Like a red squirrel among the grey,
     
    Like an English girl would be in Gdańsk.
     
    But I am not an English girl in Gdańsk.
    I’m a Pole in Coventry.
     
    And that is not the same thing
    At all.

Group Work
     
    Five foreigners in my class
    And, very strange,
    Quite coincidentally,
    Teachers never put us
    To work in the same groups.
     
    Each group must be given
    Its fair share of duds.
    No need to overburden
    One particular person.
     
    This isn’t prejudice:
    None of the smart