… you can’t plan on the heart, but …
Frank O’Hara
* * *
I take out and turn the key in Gosposka Street, I’d leaned
my bike beside the door and entered, seizing the little key
I check the box and there, sitting among a bunch of envelopes
is Your shining heart, just in time for the ringing phone,
but all the same what’s been sent shouldn’t be published, and a few things
need posting, others can stay in the bookshop,
but at noon I’ll be in the Gallery, the scent of black coffee,
a grain of sugar for bitter days, clean shaven and brushed
hurrying by, running after honours, sure,
there’s no end to elbowing, neither at work nor in politics.
I glance at the watch, might still catch Podlogar
with lunch vouchers, though today I’ll only have half a helping,
after all I’ve been sated with all the hearts shining in the letter box,
on pavement and wedged in the cracks of cobbled streets,
I may not have found the key to Your breasts (and your heart
lost there), but I’ll venture something crazy
nevertheless: to catch a moment in the crowd, a girl’s
eyes, a woman’s juice, or should I flip, heads or tails
to make do until tomorrow when again I’ll turn
the key and perhaps find the secret equation
to our irresistible attraction, and a new heart
will become the object of the modern world’s frenzy – here,
amid the seeming wellbeing of the happy,
wrapping up their former, oh, fought and ended battles,
the heartbeat is like an almost imperceptible embrace that promises
not to unlock itself even on the other side of the door.