I have come to dread summer
thick air and wildfire
light splitting the blinds loudly
so that there is noise
even when I book a flight,
commit to whatever
boiling point we are reaching
and have reached.
In Toronto I sat down
by Kapwani Kiwanga’s
keyhole garden for three hours
because the art was plants
that cleaned the air.
My laptop was divine
and the security guard across me smiled
like the good co-worker I dream of having,
someone who understands that announcing
joyous community and the falsity
of transactional relationships openly
would be missing the point.
Why is it that people on the move
are seen to be lost? The colonial
hangover of adventureas-
storytime still makes our questions
but not my tiredness which
comes from the heat and the shame
of fainting, not being able to tolerate it
as if there is something wrong with my body
for its refusal. But this is a hangover
too. Nothing is bygone, obviously. Let me eat my fish
in a cool room, please. There is a reason
someone like me feels at home
in hotels, eavesdropping on fake plants
that look succulent in warm lighting.
I miss the oak outside the window,
can hear it bending with the wind,
can remember my ancestors from two hundred years ago
sitting under another tree
waving at the lion approaching,
singing in prayer and solidarity
and the hospitality of trust.
Shazia Hafiz Ramji received a 2023 Critic’s Desk Award from ARC Poetry magazine and was shortlisted for the 2023 Alberta Magazine Awards. Her fiction has appeared in The Malahat Review and her poetry has appeared in the 2022 Montreal International Poetry Prize anthology. She lives in Western Canada and London, UK. Shazia is the author of Port of Being and is at work on a novel.
Please note that works on the Canadian Literature website may not be the final versions as they appear in the journal, as additional editing may take place between the web and print versions. If you are quoting reviews, articles, and/or poems from the Canadian Literature website, please indicate the date of access.