rua | Transit Sequence



Auckland to Amsterdam, the long southern night

where the cabin lights dim to bruised violet.
Somewhere over the Gulf

I unfold the safety card again,
its diagrams of fire and water

more familiar now than sleep.
In the seat pocket:

customs declarations,
a receipt for airport coffee,

my father at twenty-three—
coat open against sleet,

one hand resting on the bonnet

of a Hillman ticking itself quiet.
In the transit bathroom mirror

my face arrives in pieces—
mouth shaped by rain,

cheekbones turned north,
eyes still expecting

weather inside the cold.
A woman beside me folding silk

asks if I am going home.
I answer once in English,

once in my father’s hard-edged vowels,
once in the version

that immigration prefers.
By dawn the plane crosses Europe.
Fields appear beneath cloud—

green ledger books,
roads straightening rivers,

water quartered into angles.
I press my forehead

to the cold window.
Below, whole towns pass

without smoke,
without washing lines.
Two rows back,

a child begins singing
in a language I almost recognise.
He stops halfway through

and does not start again.