The City I Have Never Known

A tram moves slowly through the city. It is a place that is familiar, and not familiar at all — its buildings are both known and unknown. The fruit on the tree in the courtyard is heavy and unidentifiable. Each person who speaks of it is distant; there is a homesickness for this place in their eyes. I cannot reach out to touch them or taste the fruit.

Some sentences later, a little sister appears between the words that have been left open. She is not mine, but she has always known me and now we are both lost children trying to find our way home.