TWO POEMS FOR THE NEW YEAR (2012 B.M.A.)*

ARDENT WISH

That night will come, fully felt, indelible,
there will be no key to turn on the door:
it was always with me in my breastpocket
where it is easy enough to feel, the throbs
underneath it urging me to take the path
home where you said my stenciled footsteps
can still be traced even with the early snow
on the cobble stones. I shall retrace them.

—Albert B. Casuga
12-31-11

POST POSTSCRIPT 

If leaving were easy and found myself
in a hereafter, I might find these words
for you (if thoughts and our pillow-talk
could still cut through the walls-on-walls
of dark nights and blank sheets stiffened
into cold knife-edged shields guarding
against our talking to each other again): 

“Leave the window open, let the branch
grow close to it, you will find me there
scrambling among bridges of moonlight,
starlight, sunlight, even flickers from your
turned-down lamps, singing those little
songs I always sang to keep the fine rhythm
of my pats on your thighs, caresses to put
you to sleep on warm nights you thought
were not made for slumber or some such.”

---Albert B. Casuga  01-01-12

*Before Mayan Apocalypse

"Ardent Wish" is a response to Luisa Igloria's "Animus", and "Post Postscript", poems published in Dave Bonta's Via Negative on 12-31-11.