No Memories Of... Poem by Frank Bana

I wish I had never before seen snow
I want to know it naively
Each time the winter comes, in each snowfall
To stand with sodden shoes and heart in flame
Tasting the flakes upon my tongue, my eyes
Singing to the moulting skies
As if for the first time, I'd be
A creature with no memory of snow.

Also, I wish once more to see
A woman for the first time. Buxom, nakedly
Touching me how and where I never
Knew of touch before. I want her name
To be of foreign origin.
I want to hear the original song
And sing it to the movement of her tongue
That laps the innocence from my being.

Or.. my first day at work!
An office of my very own. The buff and bursting files
Of memorandum, savingram. Trembling, unaware
Of how to order them, what they were for
I ask the ladies in the typing pool, they call me
Their own little boy, and I race joyfully
Down shining lanes of linoleum
To meet the permanent secretary.

Blank paper, not a line. A lonely
Morning bird. Out go electric lights
With the approaching dawn.
Pregnant pens with thoughts
Of all the years and journeys gone
The places that I love and know.
I want no memories of them
I want them new again as snow.