STEPHEN FRANCIS-AWAY AND HOME

Away and Home

They walk and stare and walk and stare

Like I am some alien, not meant to be there.

I ask for help, they smile and nod

And then they simply walk off.

Is it me I ask? Is it me?

Should this place me free

Of one so clearly of another breed?

No, surely not.

That can’t be right.

I ask again, I beg, I plead.

Yet one by one they ignore me

As if I were a rotten seed

Planted by a foreign hand.

It is me. It is me.

They want this place free

Of one so clearly of another breed.

Funny that.

I leave.

I return.

With warmth and smiles I am greeted.

Refinement it may lack

Without a doubt that’s a fact.

But at least it has its humanity intact.