Michael Fantina
RUSSIAN WINTER
Your secrets locked in polished soapstone jars,
Or in your heart. To me they seem the same.
What arcane sin, or mighty hidden shame
Is buried with your potent avatars?
You fend me off with psychic steel, leave scars
Which barely heal, till your assaults inflame
Them once again. For now I will proclaim
A truce, withdraw my bleeding hussars.
Unlike some arrogant Napoleon,
I'll quit the field for good, and take a vow,
Mark you the victor, crowned on your divan,
And stall you from the wreck of your Moscow.
My great and fierce retreat from you, please know,
Is less deadly than that of long ago.
HEARTS
We met across the teeming, winter mall.
You moved with cat-like grace. Your eyes were steel.
And with a grayish blue held great appeal.
You stopped and stared, so willowy and tall.
Our eyes searched hard, but vainly, to recall
Some past meeting, and, briefly, with such zeal,
We thought: once, long ago, a sacred seal,
With love, we pledged in some forgotten hall.
Our eyes held for a moment, but too long.
The spell was shattered like some fine Beleek,
And lay in fragments for the moiling throng.
Your eyes, again, a stranger's. We might seek
Forever, though now, beyond all appeal,
Our hearts, remain, as hard as flint and steel.
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