Half and Half

I smell the tar burning in the heat-wave The cigarette almost lit itself Spontaneous combustion pirouetting Into stacks of smoke, rising steam From the pavement like breath in winter Travelling with half a name, on the road again The crowds of people like flocking birds Almost devil-red in colour Meaningless mumbles, an applause of tongues Forming like sheep into lines and rows A fully formed dance troupe, they never learned Showing half my passport to the hostesses like escorts Foreign rhymes which they think I don’t understand The cigarette writhing in the cold Slowly turning into vapour, an eruption of clouds Looking like bundles, the way the people dress here Asking with gagged mouths for half my name Half my nationality for where half my loyalty lies If only half and half could make a whole