Keep The Change Poem by Mandira Mitra

He had the sun on his back
And out of an unzipped rucksack
'The Collected Poems of Heinrich Heine'.
Frothing coffee long gone cold
I thought him a little too bold
When to our generous, 'Keep the change'
His amused rejoinder, 'Keep the space'
Landed flat on our face.
How could we keep that space?
The only thing that lovers efface?
We were in Love.
Four years down the line
He was doing Medical school
And I was doing the dishes.
In between realising Kahlil Gibran
(Let there be spaces in your togetherness) ,
And cooking for guests, I sometimes wondered
If I could manage to make that change.
And so here I was, sitting all by me
Sipping my long-gone-cold coffee.
Nothing had altered, not the beaten sun
Nor the cafeteria in the long run,
Nor the poems nor the faith
Nor the gentle old man a little out of breath:
When I told him, 'I kept the space'
Said, flat on my face, as if in exchange,
'Keep the change'.