Tania De Rozario (b. 1982)
SELECTED POEMS
The Walk Back
Sitting at the airport, half past one
in the morning; people sleeping away
stopovers, bodies strewn across chairs
like forgotten luggage: I am alone,
a terminal one at Terminal One,
my bad puns lost on the empty seatbeside me. You were tossing and turning
the night you stayed, insomnia drenching
sheets bought together seven years
before, too big then, for mattress and frame
because a single bed was all we could
afford: No longer lovers, nor persuadedby spatial restraints into each other’s arms,
we sleep intertwined anyway; the body
remembering what the mind forgets
about love: What the heart cannot help
but put away, put off, put to sleep
to move on: I will only go homeonce your plane has flown off; cry
only once the distance between us
expands into miles, brave the walk
back past the hall that spells departure
in four different languages, none of which
I can articulate, nor will ever understand.
by Tania de Rozario
from Tender Delirium (2013)
