MAGNETIC NORTH POEMS: A HUNGER

MAGNETIC NORTH POEMS: A HUNGER

 

1. MOVING NORTH TO OCCUPY

What is your magnetic north?*

A mantle of oak leaves lifts with the updraft
like an unguarded skirt billowing to reveal
gnarled and spindly trunks, brittle leftovers
of the season’s turn, not yet rid of frost marks.

Nothing to look at from where I sip my tea.
Flapping vulture wings lend the fall wheeze
a healthier sound, their cackling a strangely
dismissive sneer as they fly towards tundra

where they might yet find carrion of seals left
after the hunt. Done with the hoarfrost, done
with the hollow whistle of the woods, done
with the walling-in poplar trees. Like nomads,

they fly north now to store meals heftier than
rodents and sparrows. Will they Occupy winter?
 

2. MY MAGNETIC NORTH NOW

What is your magnetic north?**

 

Where we positioned our beds last spring,

She would be my north. She moved my bed
To the haunted study, cobwebbed now, sleep
Not coming by easy, wall-cracking snores
From my south are driving her silently crazy.

“Now. Now. Now. North. West. Please. Now.

Give me some peace and quiet. I shall share
Your bed before you salivate into deep sleep.”

Come to bed then, come now. Come now, Love.
I swear those words were the night’s screams

Not the pleading prayer I lisp quietly, slowly now.
 

---ALBERT B. CASUGA

04-26-14, Mississauga, Ontario

*NaPoMo Day 26 prompt offered by Norfolk VA poet Luisa A. Igloria **Prompt 26 by Luisa A. Igloria