Written by Adham Smart and Amy Blakemore

The men on the corner say:
(let me tell you something)
hadii kale waxan lahaa.

With the click of their tongues
and Lewisham has never been sung.
With all the throat and gut
of a Turk who cuts meat. Come

to the time of moths and open mouths
by the grove of drunken trees
It is night.
The girls are toothed
and leopard-print and laughing
all down Evelyn street. Refuse gathers in the wrinkles.
The sweet stink of cherry stores bitten dry,
pick pips clean for a pound.

They say the Turk is a cleaver
and we are the dogs
he throws the cuts to.
We fight.
We kill to eat.
We jump and fall.
The city is covered in shame.
We want to be human but
we don’t know how.