Nothing Of That Afternoon Was Appropriate. Poem by Prathibha Nandakumar

Nothing of that afternoon was appropriate.

His coming in late and in the casual manner
asking for the truth, the whole truth and nothing but
the truth was an indication of things to come.

Truth he was not really interested in.
He was buying time and slowly, like
one possessed by nightmares, he picked up
something from his bag, may be remains of
some other afternoon in a far away land
and I asked to see its remaining parts and
the typical puritan could never get to
tell me that he had already sold them to the
lady in blue chiffon.

They had warned me that there is no cure to this
Yet I had come to meet him.
He paid for the coffee and walked out
of my life with a bag full of lies that
I had convinced the lady in blue chiffon to sell me.