call me

call me when you’ll be old
so old that the only thing making sense to your tired hands
will be to open the windows during sunrise
and to latch them back at dusk,
when any name you’d call
will taste round and salty in your voice
when it will scratch the silence
call me when you will have called
all else on the face of earth
and when the only name left to be called will be mine.
call me,
and I will come and curl at your feet and warm them up
and make them remember the cubic stones
of paths we took only in my imagination
and the trickle of water carrying down the road
autumn leaves that never saw November in their lives.
call me when you’ll be old,
so old that eggshells of sparrows will look like coffins
from which death escaped and feeds on earthworms and flies,
and I will come and wonder by your side
of how suddenly water will spring from the wooden doors of cupboards
mirroring the flow of words from some apocryphal gospel
yet undiscovered.
but above all, call me when you’ll be old
when the mere exercise of remembering me will exhaust you
call my name,
as small and insignificant and lacking substance as it may seem
and I will come and finally hold your hands
and nest my breath in them
and I will tell you a story about a love that wasn’t love,
a time that wouldn’t flow
and stardust.

© Liliana Negoi