I’d like to be a gypsy
and continually leave places
without leaving anything
my suspended house wheeling
the china knickknacks who knows when
the lively plastic ones made in China
and the good-luck elephant in semi-precious stone
with its trunk pointing skywards
for husband a cousin
and our children
blood brothers and blood cousins
closer for that and more distant
his father my uncle
and father-in-law
I confuse his small square hands with my father’s
and the his hairline and his voice
and to see in other people’s noses
my own nose
their lips in my lips
my daughter’s persistent odour
echoing my own
my mother
her mother
her mother’s mother
this smell is strong
a chain attached who knows where
ancient like a God before a surname
like the nose he crouches in
repeating itself
repeating
and repeating
a clever gypsy trick
a still point in a continuous going
always scattered and never lost