The rain crackles on the corrugated roof
Like popcorn exploding in the microwave.
A great blossoming of gloom shrouded
The patio where we would once sit and toke and sway,
Muted occasionally by the evening air traffic.
The doleful Digitaria stretched its fingers
Wide and swarmed our well-neglected lawn.
The old grass barely put up a fight,
Submitting to colonial circumstance
As the lemon tree grew besieged by this conglomerate of hands.
The neighbourhood cats don’t slink by these days.
Once a well-trekked feline thoroughfare,
The sizeable plot sat sullenly, no longer
Sought after by the curious whiskers
And slow waving tails of creatures of all shades
Brandishing bejewelled collars and coloured bandanas;
Our fence, no longer the Bifröst bridging suburban worlds,
It’s fresh rotting pine seeming taller than ever.
I let you go knowing the sky would grow darker.
Sometimes all that you can do
Is shut your mouth and let the tide pull out
As quickly as it had moved in,
Brandishing the ones we can’t bear to lose.
You were almost a sister but that doesn’t sound quite right does it?
Less than kin but more than kind.
I remember every silence.
The awkward pregnant pauses
And the soft newborn sighs.
With some people the gaps between words seem to hold the most value
And I could feel our minds coalescing and
We just seemed to know.
– sam dover
Sweetly Unhappy People 