You Said: Why Can I Not Have My Day

a cherished paper-cutting for those who forgot to care and for you too late a cribbed account in pale bold face on some crowded backpage which lapped up the soya stains on the takeaway counter some faded picture of you crammed in nubile twists of fronting elegance in meagre-columned glossy pages you said : why can’t i have my day why should a destitute Greek prince lord it over the world just by tying a knot with his regal cousin your eyes recognising too late a world you may never see again a world you may not be seen in again all your self-suffocating words and all those poured in contempt on you through you for you to feed those who grudged your fleeting glory Now now that all may be forgotten now that no bile inhabits this carcass over some too pulpy a fruit a taste of you from freshly-turned earth bloody juicy earth our teeth caught clinging to your bleeding shredded flesh of cells into cells of us into our selves © T.Wignesan, Paris, 1987 (from the collection : Poems Omega-Plus : a less than obvious sequence, 2005)