The thunder lilies are massacred.

Severed sunshine heads loll on the grass.

And then the rain comes and stomps them in the mud.

When they are brown, like old blood, you will not even notice.

A cellphone is ringing.
Buzzing on the table, against the table, and screaming stereophonic.

Shall I pick up ? she asks, simply,
It is the only one, and perhaps will be for a long, long time,
Perhaps forever.
Though it hurts, I know it hurts.
I am alone, not lonely but I might be.
And not a message. This call or nothing.

The phone plays on her nerve, trouncing nasally on a note,
Sounding in her brain-
She thinks of cold nights and the fear of herself.
Of pitiful anger, aimed at nothing.

She steels herself and picks up.

I do not want to beg
For emotions.
To stand at the door and look
Timid, eager, perhaps a little guilty,
And knock. And wait.

And how much good would it do
Anyway? -Would you notice,
Look up from your scribbling
One impatient moment,
Or raise a hand to wave me away,
Or look inquiringly-
Polite but hardly interested-
and wait for my question ?

Does it matter ? I smile at myself;
Would I not rather
See you from the door than not at all,
Happy that something so interests, holds you;
Feel a need that needs no answer, holds
No pride, and so, no shame ?

She waits, has been waiting, has waited.

How long ? Since a long time.

She wonders, on storm-clad evenings, what she will do if he returns.
Now.

If he walks through- no, no, rings the doorbell and waits, seven-forty-five as always, and night begins.

She’d move- unsuspecting like the movies ? instinctively certain, like the books ?- to the door, unlatch it [peered through the eyehole-thing, couldn’t see anything], peer out, stop.

Unbelieving? Instantly relieved of all life’s burdens ? A surprising anger swelling up ? [Probing it, she finds that it is real, like a blister or a fester] Tired, does she give up thinking about it, accept just the release from the sympathy lists, from the endless talking to get around her aloneness, getting away from the nights alone in the double-bed, stealing warmth from the bodies of men she’d seen that day to stuff the side-pillow she slept with ?

He is still standing there, she remembers. He will have to say something. Something about having missed her ? Being glad to be back ? Meaningful silence? Meaningful small talk ? Meaningless phrases, heavy with emotion ? A mannish sound of never-to-be-articulated need ?
And what will he look like ?

The same ? Heavily changed, wasted and thin, tough from the knocks of the world ? A scar across his eyebrow [she loves those] from where a girl threw the razor at him to hurt him howevermuch at shouting-parting ? Or peaceable and prosperous… in the way they’d always scorned ? Corpulent, even. Hm.

And what would she do ? Shrink back, move unseeingly forward, hit him ? Cry, a moan of despair, or of longing... after all he was so beautiful, she’d always wondered how- Would she open the door and fully face him ? Throw up her chin, droop her head quietly, scrutinize him, his expression, his look? Break into a long-lost smile ? [the fake one?] Invite him in like a stranger, step back and let him enter, draw him in, slam the door in his face, shake her head slightly and step back and close it with a soft click and a sigh, turn away ?

Walk into the drawing room, bedroom, kitchen, to the drinks cupboard, out the bathroom window, off the balcony ?

She stops; looks out into the rain, feels the rush of it speed her blood, spray her skin, kickstart her brain.
And remembers that on still summer afternoons she cries.

She waits, has been waiting, has waited.

How long ?

Since long time.

On pearl-grey mornings, she wonders what she will do.

On stormy nights, she is brilliant, wild.

In the sultry afternoons, long, slow tears trickle down.

I tried to avoid myself, one day.

Dodged mirrors, glossy cupboards,
The computer till the screen lit.

Tried not to see the body
Always bordering my vision
-Especially sitting down-
So I wandered the house
Madly
Slamming hands and feet
Against door-jambs, window-bars,
To make it stop following me,
Leave me alone.

But she was always there-
I, I should say- Always
Watching when I turned my eyes
Ever so slightly, to check.

But the pain I caused
Made me hurt;
Wondering, I
Washed my grazed knee,
And said, There-there,
And felt better,
And looked up, to see
Nobody watching.

Sitting at breakfast.

Us, in our bermudas and other
Appropriate holiday clothes,
Them with anything on that
They could find, even nothing
If nothing came to hand.

Us rubbing our full bellies,
Content with the obscene amounts of breakfast
That we ate, smug in the conscious innocence
Of our chosen pleasures,
While they, with the plates of connoisseurs,
Go back and forth under our scrutiny,
Too many women in this couple,
Too many tattoos in that one,
The races suspicious in that family of four.

And yet it is we who are the weak ones, I think;
Fearful, though we too want the company,
Sex, comfort; defensively smug
Because the only other thing to do would be envy
That they went out and asked, got, laid,
While we sat here and smothered ourselves
With cheap clothes and tourist-spot snaps,
And some of ourselves, to prove we'd been,
And peered into strip-clubs, sideways, on our way past,
And speculated.