My vowel sounds are sanctioned by the south:
I offer words like damaged goods,
fear they’ll be amusing or misunderstood.
From finis terre to end of Englishness,
traverse the geography of time and life.
Upend the map, make the jigsaw fit
a different way, unsettle home. Like roots
uprooted, edges are inheritance –

the Tyne a frontier on my skin, the wind, the craic,
the singing tongue familiar-foreign – North

is where I found my source, inside.