The Poem

She met me,

accidentally,

after a gap of years -

thirteen to be precise 

                   and

it was evident 

how Time had her

skin dampened,

teeth splintered,

nails smudged,

hair des​ic​cated.

She, however

courageously, did not

make any effort

to hide all this and said

"Yes, I'm living a Life! You see?

What about you?"

(I wanted to reply 

but withheld:

maybe there will be a poem about all this -

reminding you how grief 

gatecrashes over us all,

stanza-wise -

without rhymes,

in loneliness)

You will understand it without a summary.

Sole

That night,

I slept with a shoe

in my heart.

In fact,

anything to hold on to

could have sufficed.

The body just yearned for

some semblance of something 

that sounded 

or at least possessed 

a soul.

Nothing much.