Adham Smart

 

Imperial

 
I walked you home in the shimmer
of sheet-like rain, an upside-down lake
emptying onto the newspapers of the day,
which we held above our heads.
The ink ran in little streams, blending with the dark
which soaked the banyans into sodden reverie.
We laughed like children as we ran from palm to palm,
with no hope of staying dry - we were already wet through,
and our clothes stuck together,
peeled apart when we stopped to kiss.
You tiptoed slightly to reach my lips, and I
hid my face in yours, where no-one could find me,
tell me to get back to work, yaar,
leave the white woman
alone.
 
We reached the veranda of your father's house,
stumbling, splashing, giggling
over floating coconut shells, butterfly coracles,
where the rain glanced off the moth's wings
as it has always done.
And we kissed again, and you
gasped with pleasure as I picked you up
as you had always done.
I took you to the cliff not a hundred yards
from your father's house, and set you down
in the knee high grass, strong and yellow,
so different from the green turf that tickled your ankles
outside the new palm house at Kew.
 
Another kiss, and in the background
spiders wove necklace webs
between the branches of the shrubs behind us,
baubled with spheres of heavenly water.
As I pulled away, and your foreigner's eyes
opened slowly in delight, plush lips slightly parted,
willing me back, I guided your freckled face
towards the East, brown fingers stroking your cream cheeks.
 
We threw our newspapers' rags over the cliff for the morning monkeys,
took to holding each other instead.
We smiled while the last of the rain fell,
and the weak light picked up a friendly chill,
so I held you even closer, and we watched as the sun
rose in frosty Punjabi.

 

 

Adham was a Foyle Young Poet in 2006 and 2008, and commended in 2007.

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