On the way

You say you're on the way but it seems like you're here already.

Already, I've bought tea bags on loan from the corner shop, already I've removed hair-entwined bands, bands that keep score of a scalp's losing cause, from brushing distance of soapcase and shampoo. Already, I've gotten the hot water running and the have swept pest-powdered corners clean of white cakes of long-dead ants.

I sit as still as I can, not wanting to add to the noises that make me difficult for me to pick out your footstep- chairs being scraped hospitably upstairs, lifts banging their doors inhospitably shut behind them, cutting short the automated wail of "Please Close the Door", newly ordered cane sofas and teak corner tables being uneasily bounced up the stairs, the protracted foot-stomping of a child unwilling to forfeit his bat and his wicket.

And after an hour, I'll pace across the length of the living room, half-peeping through the doorway crack at intervals, as if expecting to find you standing there, hands in pockets, not ringing the bell, as if your presence itself is a magic word that would get the door to spring open.

And if that doesn't world, I'll sit by the gate swinging knees across the wall, counting headlights till yours meet my eye and stop

I'll walk the entire way, down the lift, past the tussle of bat handles, because we'll have to meet midway on the road, at least. You said you were on the way...