Next year

Next year

The wooden key-chain

is a souvenir that I acquired

from my time in Madrid.

An emblem is branded into one side:

a bear pushes up against the 'madrono',

the strawberry tree,

standing firmly against the darkened grain,

beneath the seven stars of the north,

and the arc of a thin crown.

She said that every time she looks

at pictures of her time in Australia,

she is overwhelmed with sadness;

she promises to herself

to be back within a year.

I have heard those words before,

I have uttered them myself, in my fits of desperation,

when I cannot stand my fellow New Yorkers any longer,

when I am tired of saying what I myself do not believe,

when I am thirsting for one more Spanish night.

Next year I say, perhaps, quizas?  Next year.

I am here, in Queens,

and I can't blame all the

'next years' for eluding me.

So many opportunities exist,

while my souvenir quietly hangs

from the zipper on my old blue bag.