Do You Remember?

Do you remember snowdrops in May
and two years later
how we saw them again,
on a hot summer afternoon:
and I pressed them between soft linen
and put them away,
and then conferred
with the high and mighty
about conquest and capture
of our sand castles
where love began?

Do you remember that
I returned to Blacklabel and Davidoffs
and snowdrops came back
and I trapped them in soft linen
for the last time?

Do you remember,
cool October-the start of the pujas
when the damp muggy air was gone
and a crisp breeze blew near Lodhi garden
and we tried again
to coax snowdrops out of the sun
but they would not come?

My tears mingled
with green label tea
and Bhutanese marmalade.

You promised you'd come back,
I knew somehow you would not,
and you did not,
do you remember?