Duologue Poem by Nkwachukwu Ogbuagu

If you are licensed to love me,
Then go on and love me.
Do not wait for the moon
To remind you...
The moon sprinkles ash
On wet souls, through beams
Of heated caresses.
She serenades the skies on
Nights that flourish with the
Past, posting lewd jokes on
Streamwalls, naked and prim...

So the moon does if she has
To remind you. A placebo she
Laughingly prepares for sadists
Like you...

If I wake up at slumber hour
When your love deepens,
Remind me with the patience
Of the clock, which ticks
Like my heart when it loves.
I shall knot your hair gently
With fingers that seduce the
Keys of the piano, which hums
Loudly...but softly, softly,
Like the taut drum of my being
When you first lodged there.

Let us both inhale the evening air
Where love resides,
Where promises are shattered
On walls of lust, red, sweet and
Dangerous, like covetous wines.

Love chastises.
Make up your mind, therefore,
Where you shall be by dawn:
Under my armpit, like a rolled mat
Or under siege.

Speak for your years, Dear Lily,
Now and here...
Are you licensed to love me –
Or better still – to haunt me, like
The ghost which love, that chastises,
Truly is.