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.
