Eleanor, a poignant encounter

I saw Eleanor from far off

she wore her trademark

sewn-in mirrors in a

sparkling red gold blue bandanna

 

she walked unsteadily,

like a sailor on shore leave,

or a Friday night drunk
 

she looked much older now

careworn, drawn,

(that’s what stress and chemo does to you)

but hauntingly beautiful,

still hinting of Sissy Spacek in Carrie -

only without the horror aspect

 

I smiled

she half-smiled, half grimaced

as painful memories surfaced

 

her sad eyes -

teary sad, hurting sad, 

had long since dried of shine

 

oh how they shone on her ‘sex face’

when she was ‘Carrie’, I was ‘Shaft’

and our carousing

play-fight love-making 

brought coppers to the door

 

my brittle smile masked my heartache

at the bone we buried in history’s backyard 

(a bone we never resurrected)

 

Eleanor said she liked my hat

 

‘I bought it in Kathmandu

Nepal is unbelievable

I copped a dose of dysentery

spent time in a hill station

smoking top charas

dropping acid -

it was mind-blowing

 

every morning  this woman,

I reckoned a goddess.

walked barefoot to a shrine

singing...’

 

she cut my shite-spiel short, 

‘are you better now?’

 

’I’m fabulous, how are you?’

‘I’m alright... no... I’m fine...  fine... I’m fine…’

 

her eyes were dark ringed

hollow like her cheeks

 

no point asking if she planned to travel -

I’d seen her painful trail

from surgery to pharmacy

 

we soon ran out of 

nothing much to say

 

I leaned to peck her cheek,

she moved her face away

 

I shook her limp-grip hand

wondering when this shade

of the woman she had been

would take its leave of Earth

 

and would our unborn soul -

(a faller before the first hurdle)

greet her with a cuddle,

heal her with a kiss,

smile and say,

‘it’s fine, mum.’

 

and it would be.