Someone Else's Property

This Airbnb has me lost in thought I've been thinking about regrets As so often I do when I'm awake At night in the wee small hours Or the light of day, anytime really Sitting in someone else's property Makes me think how weird it is To be sitting in someone else's property I think there's been a cat here My allergies have been triggered Hotels are designed for strangers But homes are not — unless money That's true of most things Gifts, acts of love, sex and death Become things for strangers When there's a bottom line _ Someone else’s time, their body, their mind, their heart. My nose is swollen a little — not too dramatically — In someone else's property, in a city unfamiliar That could be any Scottish city, save for the green buses and the coastal-meets-urban landscape _ The gulls are calling now, replacing the distant sirens and the calls of the delinquents and disreputes _ Not that I can judge, as my regrets and guilt and growing uneasy, and the damn allergic reaction, remind me I am not sinless or saintly. My halo chokes and I too have benefitted and suffered from the commoditisation of someone's property, visually beyond physical reach but still enough for viscera.

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