Did You Learn to Cook?

Half a pack of cards -
The king of spades still has the turned corner
On the left bottom;
From that weekend we spent,
Locked in a cottage
Lost amidst coffee and pepper...
I knew you cheated, you know,
And I let you win anyway.
I still have that book,
Marked with a dried rose
On page 211;
‘Sad poems’, you said, with misty eyes,
So I packed it away in my bag...
I never returned it,
And you never asked.

I don’t have pictures;
When you left, you took them all.
Perhaps you knew,
That I don’t need pictures,
To remember,
How you leaned out of the rear window,
To look back,
When you thought I wasn’t watching;
I don’t need pictures to remember,
How you'd bite your lip
When you smiled sometimes;
How you moved when you danced
In my arms;
How you’d tie up your hair, a little messy,
And hum in the kitchen...
By the way, did you learn to cook?

The little love-notes you left,
Stuck to the bathroom mirror;
The oversized, overworn T-shirt,
That we both fought over;
A pair of grey socks,
That you forgot in the laundry basket -
These are all that are left of you
Behind my closed door...
And yet,
Like the lingering smell of drenched earth
After a rain,
What I have of you
Is so much more.

(Composed - 07th July 2014)