When your house has four walls, and you've finally fixed the ceiling, when the rooms are painted, and the cupboards set. When you've gone to the nursery and picked out tiny pots, will you call me and ask me what to name them? Will you let me paint, over your ceramic pots . . . And when they break, will you let me mould you clay. Because I never saw you as a child, but you picked me up, and placed me on your lap. You rode me on your back, and at night, while I brushed my teeth you sat on the bed, singing rhymes so that darkness wouldn't scare.

Will you stay for me, now that you have four plates to keep. Will you rage and pour for me, like you always did. Now you have a shoulder, that is not fickle, and impish like mine. You lay your head there, it is steady and does not move, lets you sleep, and lets you rest. Will you still want mine, because I play with your hair, and will tickle in your ears, and I'll never let you sleep.

Will you come to me, with jokes I'll never laugh at. Will you bring me food, and will you call me up in the middle of the day . . . because you crave a choclate icecream. Or is it all gone, to that house whose ceiling they just fixed.

And in your red odhna, when you finally go . . . Will you turn around, hold my hand, and call me a turtle for walking too slow.