Topography of an Arrival
by amara_osei · 24 June 2026 · Poetry
An arrival poem in seven parts. Vienna, the first night, Heimweh, northern light, the silent city. Amara arrives.
I. Vienna receives me with the face of a city that has already seen everything.
I say: no. I mean: everything.
II. I carry: a language I do not speak an address I learned by heart my mother's voice (no weight and all of it)
III. First night. In Accra silence means someone has been listening. Here I do not know yet.
IV. Heimweh contains Weh. In Twi: ohaw. It contains nothing but itself.
V. First morning: light through a window facing north. In Ghana the light always points elsewhere. It warms me all the same.
VI. The underground runs even when you don't know where you're going. The city doesn't ask where you're from. That is not coldness. That is dignity.
VII. In the evenings I write in Twi what I experienced in German. The translation never quite fits. That is not a gap. That is me.
Read in the app, leave a resonance, discover more stories.