Maps for Lost Lovers

Home,

was a series

of street corners

and intersections,

ordered, marked,

and known

in familiar ways;

that moved

in comforting rhythms –

an easy to read map

of people and places.

Until I met you.

You gave me

street-lit mementos

of a stolen night;

changing what my landmarks meant –

late night ice-cream indulgences,

tea-time musing by the beach,

dosa breakfast at the corner café –

as we exchanged stories

on tree-lined avenues;

and a lifetime of my memories

mingled with a lifetime of yours.

And I was left

with nothing

but a what-if?,

pregnant

with the past,

the present,

and the heavy weight

of possibility.

You took the contours

of my city,

and redrew them

using your own legend,

leaving me lost in a city

that was once,

familiar to me. 

Dolour

I am

The dregs in your tea cup;

Those old sole-less sneakers,

Worn in familiars ways

Forgotten

I am

The dust that settles

Around your memories;

The coffee cup stains

On the table;

The tinny silences

Of a phone

That doesn’t ring.

I am

Your loose change -

Forgotten in the cracks,

Amongst the cushions,

Beneath the bolsters

Of our love. 

Moving

She

hauled

two cartons, contents -

one hundred and sixty four books,

three posters, two paintings,

and one ceramic owl;

three suitcases of clothes,

a lifetime of jewellery;

one pressure cooker

(with two weights, just-in-case),

three pots, one pan and a spatula –

all non-stick, of course.

Up

four flights of demanding stairs,

(“it’s actually only three and a half”

the broker had promised).

Past the genial uncle with trembling keys,

and a door that wouldn’t cooperate

with his old hands;

around children,

who weave through her legs,

caught in a tense game of ‘cho-pohleec’.

Into

the two-bed-two-bath-hall-kitchen. 

Her laboured breath mingles with the heat

that radiates

from the walls, the floor, the ceiling.

The sunlight throws a mango tinted spotlight

on the dust

that dances in on the back of the hot summer breeze,

and she knows,

She is home.