Love in the backyard

Love could have been all those things

that we had planned

Years back when we planted the garden on my backyard

Eyes,smiles,laughter,voices had strolled hand in hand

Brushing arms and wombs

Night caressing the happiness that tingled infected and young

Growing thick in the green curls of leaves and breeze

The rain whispered and hissed

Helplessly melting in the belly of flowers 

Today when I cross the kitchen 

I miss the garden 

Behind the plush curtains 

bought from the neighbourhood sale 

The price seemed just right

Like chopped dreams

Like my sorted and tentative

I do not know if I have begun to accept 

The disquiet of things, dust fastened and hazed 

Lying in the pulpy pages of beseeching springtime 

Sprawling in books 

some men like you and women like me 

Unnerving elephantine and winged

Love could have been all those things 

That I let go when I miss the garden 

Which we planted in my backyard

Forests grow and die

Now I have begun to disappoint you 

Unremittingly so 

I no more play the perfect girl

No more do i shudder inside perfect smiles

Where i dissembled and died

I have perfected this art of dying 

Without you ever noticing my deaths

How many times I died and heard voices whispering over my grave 

To be woken up by mornings and birds that cry

I do not know what frightens you more

My beaked shrill 

Or the memory of loyalty that you will behold no more

Now that you too have begun to disappoint me

Let us practice abandonment 

from the sound of calm footsteps that fade and return

Till forests grow and die