His head kept bumping on my shoulder
and he was not my father
or anyone I knew

he smelled as if a bath was overdue
and slept like wasn't a place better
than the ***** briefness of my shoulder.

Breaking down was my brittle patience
needled by his bristled cheek
brushed by his shabby dress,

was for rest the man hard pressed?

Wouldn't I have been nudged by pride
if the head on my shoulder was my father
happy to have him by my side?

as he gets older
does his blurry mind miss
a place where he is not alone

one or any shoulder
for an untimely nap in peace
a quiet stranger to rest upon?

The cloth bazaar was quietly breathing rest.

I was scanning rows of hangers for summer shorts
picking up here and there
dresses without skeletons
smiling in the revelation
why skeletons don't need shorts.

I found a poem in one of those hangers
**** with no words
begging me to drape it with some
enough to make it one summer shorts.

Something welled up in my eyes
bare as the poem and as true
and thinking of it
I bought summer shorts
not one but two.

Resting the mind is not easy
it dances like a sparrow
and speaks like a babbler
seeking the minutest grain
from the jungle of weeds
tweeting what it has to say
from one perch to the other
in all weather.

Then the aching wings falling slow
by the cold north wind
find no worth in the haste
seek a rest
perching upon some heart.

When unbroken silence is all it has
the mind rests easy in peace.

The space I have
needs someone to fill up
and found none so far.

I cursed the man for invading
into the May notes of casuarinas
on a space all my own
before the sun was alluringly soft
on the tender hearts by the sea
finding love in whispered notes
sheltered by the swaying trees.

Found many and none
and their vacuous echoes
question where I failed
or was there precious silence
speaking it wasn't a void
that I ravaged into sands
of futile recollections and laments.

The mercury was falling
over the man as I left him
and soon the creed of hope
would break in like evernew waves
around a vacuum of empty space.

To this body
Death does as it should,
Consigns the shell
To the firewood
And sets the spirit free.

Close to the fire
the heat singes me.

I know it's only the prelude
to the fiery furnace
licking my skin with flaming tongues
reducing me to powdered ashes
disappearing and in no time fading
what was me but in an instant
dusts in urns and upon wall
and years after maybe one's
untimely rains of dusty memories.