Closing Time at an Irani Cafe

Was our love like an Irani Cafe?
Meticulously manicured, soulfully stagnant?
Marble top tables and intricately woven chairs
Yet nothing but dust and ash all around,
Over the face in the faded photo-frame of the long deceased owner
Watching over the dying eatery and the dying patrons
Weeping like the storm that laced our midnight long distance calls,
The tears slowly mingling with the salt of the
Kheema pav and akuri.
Did it also stale over time, like the hardened bun maska,
Each bite more painful than the last?
Like the chai working overtime, bursting at its seams
With a sweetness that betrayed its loss of love and trust?
Did it also stare, like the current proprietor, out at the
Crumbling roads and broken cars, sighing at the possibility
Of what could have been and what already was?
When, with its dying light, it shuts its doors forever
The chairs now being stoically stacked one on top of another
Will our love too be replaced with a newer enterprise
Or would it continue to stand, by itself, acting as
A symbol of resilience or mockery ?