Dying
There will come a day
of poppies and grandfathers
rainbows that straighten out
not in colour but perfume,
a day of tall grass
whose tips curl like music notes
and my fingers play
their splendid stems
and I would be old
so much older
that I would be younger than I am now
so lost and in such wonderful decay
that garments me in anonymity divine
and you would come
and in a moment of unrecognized ignorance
that off-guards and lulls
embrace.
And then I would die.
Forever, this time.
– Malinda Seneviratne
****
Handshake
Your hand, warm, closed
Clasped in mine,
More than a perfect fit, but both as one.
A customary handshake, no doubt
But so unlike,
The limp, cold, clammy, trim, curt,
Shy, bossy, randy or plain officious
Others I have known.
Yet your handclasp links in a chain
of our mutual tacit attraction,
wordless, instinct, tactile, timeless.
For a while, I had forgotten
What people will say or think
When I let my hand rest in yours
For an eternal spellbound forever,
Until you gently untangled
your fingers from mine and let
The skein of a cobweb lie in tatters.
– Sonali Wijeratne
