Two Poems

by Maciej Baltruszewicz

Astral Curfew

My parents and I had never discussed a curfew;

I didn’t think that they would jail me like that. And yet,

there seemed to linger the unpronounced souring

whisper of a promise I didn’t know I had made. I found

myself wishing for benediction; an instantaneous

transposition into another man’s body, older

and rugged. I liked to think of that other me—

the astral self—running through and from the night

with you, living out the love I wanted; minor key

broken and fallen off the piano, crunched under

the boot of this handsome dark prince

whilst his child-self lay asleep in a narrow bed. I hope

he was enough to keep you along, my own

fiction-sweet creation. And maybe you didn’t know

this, but in between kisses at the old, red, rusted

shipping container, he would cry at the moon,

from frustration that freedom would have to be stolen

to be had at all.

Glycerine Boy

Calpol-cap-white dunes of salt

swirl beneath my feet—bundled

in bin-bags with memory foam

for insulation. The salt, of course,

is really snow, but the bin-bag

shoes are real. O my friends,

see how you’ve left me—

here, watching this snow-storm

thrum with doom. My sight

has become granular. I can only see

through shards at a time. The icicles

once stiff on your breaths

I now keep folded in a burlap sack

thrown over my shoulder, the points

pricking my back through the fabric—

I suck on them for empty calories,

sometimes. My tongue peeks out in search

of warmth but tastes only bitterness.

Final meal call, says an imaginary

intercom woman. Please, a bottle

of glycerine, I say back. Not so filling,

but I won’t need my hunger sated

for much longer now—I would rather

my tongue sugared than my life

warmed. C’mere glycerine boy, they’ll say,

searching. Your time has come to see

the sun. Only then, when they find me,

I won’t be much more than the sticky

slab of ice that sweetened himself cold.

Maciej Baltruszewicz is a Polish-born writer. In 2022, he completed a Bachelor of Arts in English and Spanish at the University of Galway, and is currently at work on a first collection of poems. Some of his poetry is forthcoming in La Piccioletta Barca. He grew up and lives in Co. Galway, Ireland.