Julio Cortazar

Happy New Year


Look, I don't ask much,
just your hand, to hold it
like a little toad who'd sleep there happily.
I need that door you gave me
for coming into your world, that little chunk
of green sugar, of a lucky ring.
Can't you just spare me your hand tonight
at the end of a year of hoarse-voiced owls?
You can't, for technical reasons.  So
I weave it in the air, warping each finger,
the silky peach of the palm
and the back, that country of blue trees.
That's how I take it and hold it, as
if so much of the world
depended on it,
the succession of the four seasons,
the crowing of the roosters, the love of human beings.




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