December Man

Cold forget-me-not feet,
Hushed sugar-sweet-touch, 
Golden glassy-eyed rays, 
Mist-breath on mirrors and glass-panes, 
A ripple of goosebumps at the very end...
Call it December again...
Where my story began.

A phuchka everyday,
In A-line skirts,and wrinkled hems
Long-awaited tamarind sprinkle to my name
Everyday, the last bell
A cue to the man who made our dreams
Livid enough to colour in the edges
With our hard-earned five bucks

And perhaps an extra phuchka
With salted smile to tear-stricken pages.


The weathered frays of that sidewalk has left,
No more are the hoarding ladies
With their graffitied marker-pen specs,
Yet our feet still knock on the craving doors
Of a loose pavement tile,
A new pavement tile heaven...


But the man of our dreams does live on....
Another face, a deviant tamarind song,
To new many names, and more faces...
But the haven is still our haven,
Of December dreams,
Of innumerable school shoes
And cold forget-me-not feet...
And A-line woes.


Almost as if...the new December man
Knew we would return 
Someday
With a broken heart, 
Or shreds of a name,
Too broken to be broken again...
To call it...our December again...