i am not so ready to let you go to heaven today

stay a while won’t you even if we won’t likely meet

for years together and only in remembered merriment

or disillusionment, the sparkling and scattering of dreams

you will live in my mind and yes my heart

where sometimes strangers seep in

when you least expected them to

 

how would i have known that we would meet

that you’d be standing one day in my kitchen

watching me cook a most ordinary meal and exclaim

over every sizzle and every seasoning

even the wretched burnt and blackened aubergine

 

yes, we wouldn’t meet perhaps, even for years it’s true

but i’d know you’re there somewhere laughing in the face

of an unkind sun, getting freckles, making jams,

really those bottles…

making life yield when it’s at its most recalcitrant

never letting a single painting you’d made

in your mind, scar, lose colour, go even that bit dim

 

there’d be phone calls sometimes, job child life

discussed, you’d walked on a bright spring day

the sky was incredibly blue and you’d sat looking

at flowers, you had fought you’d said for that feeling,

yes you’re happy, you know not far away is the next

turn and the next, it can be done on hourly wages too

 

there would be whatsapp chats and groups

messages at times flying and then some long gaps

photos of freshly baked cakes, stirring fries, perfectly

shaped curry puffs, we’d say silly things, things that

go and smash madness to smithereens, you’d be

back maybe next year or the year after that

 

where do you keep a person intact in which part of you

how intricate the machine that gets this work done

how precisely and with focus it toils to make sure

every moment every memory everything that mattered

makes contact, gets into the slot set aside, never goes

not even to heaven no matter how hard it calls

 

i am not yet ready to let you go to heaven today

stay playing in me for a while won’t you.