Infoallglobe.com   writers forum                Published on 29/09/2000

                                                                    

CYRANO

                                              ARUNODAY  MUKHOPADHYAY, India  

Once a week he used to call on her

Before the bells chimed in the evening

Read to her the news, exchanged gossip,

Mortally wounded he was of a secret love.

 

He kissed her once, almost – not quite

But that was another day and age.

Her eyes, her smile were still the same

And the pearly white teeth visible through the

  slightly parted lips.

 

Her nose was straight as ever,

Not grown crooked at the tip with age.

The strands of grey hair suspiciously sparse

The chin was heavier and the dimple drowned.

 

While coming downstairs with him on the way out,

She bent forward a little to switch on the light.

“It was my right shoulder” he mused, it was her left breast.

Softly he patted the place as if to hold on the touch.

One day on the weekly visit, his last, he was waylaid

His wounded body matched the lacerated heart.

His head lay on her lap.  He had revealed all.

Reciting her husband’s effusions while serenading.

 

For love to be immortal, the lover has to die.

Faintly ridiculous, his offer for her hand refused

The ersatz Cyrano continued to come for the plumbing

   and the income-tax.

A crusty old bachelor framed in time with a helpless childless widow.

 
 

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