Saudade

|Her smile flashes before his eyes.
He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath.
He can feel her breath on his face and neck,
The caress of her delicate, slim fingers,
Engaged in his rough, brazen fist.

The tinkling of her laughter,
Rings in his heart.
A sound that he hasn’t heard,
In many years.

He knows she still lives here.
In some fancy towering apartment on Park Street,
Happily settled in mundane domesticity.

As the cab makes its way through the traffic,
He indulges in the romance and nostalgia,
That still flow through the streets.
Fleetingly he remembers those days,
She and he had spent walking in the rains.

He remembers that day,
When his shirt clung to his skin,
Heavy with her tears and his fears.
He had told her that he wanted to end it.

She had cried a little more,
And then wiping her tears she had declared,
“If I go away today, I will forever walk away”.

Today from his hotel room,
He looks out at the city,
Of his love and loss. 

At Oxford Bookstore,
With his latest book,
He poses for some candid shots,
Clinks customary champagne flutes…
And then quietly slips out.

It’s raining. It’s pouring in Park Street.
He walks over to Flury’s,
Then takes a right,
And makes his way down Middleton Row,
To that tree,
Under which he had stood,
Waiting for her,
On several summer afternoons.

Tracing back his steps,
He stumbles into Someplace Else.

And there by the bar,
He sees her with some friends.
She has seen him, he knows,
He has seen her, she knows.

Mustering all the courage that he can,
He sends her an old-fashioned note.
Pouring out his heart on a piece of paper,
He pens down,
How much he misses her.

She reads the letter with care,
With a tear dangerously balanced,
At the tip of her lashes.
Finally, she turns the page,
And sends back a message that says,
“We of those times, no longer the same.”