For M

they whispered about her infront of her children
claiming they remembered her, or rather

the christmases when everything she bought them
did not fit. this was a sign, they say, that she

never bothered to know them.
she was a mystery to the youngest

sister for she ran off to a convent and said prayers to a god
whom she denounced years after, finding

the right footstool for her faith
and knowing somehow that she

would always be better than who she was
then - a hollow child who breathed her life into

words and dreamt of gold to fill herself, instead
of mopping the floors and helping mother

create kamote sweets to feed the rich.
rich is what she wanted to be. imagine

the length of chances, the various lives she can lead.
her dreams were monsters, they say.

her children hear them whisper that she died of wanting,
of having known hunger and not fearing it. it is late and

they decide to move on to the part of
the narrative when it is already night time. in the scene,

she has snapped. she is commanding everyone
to move out of the house she had bought with

foreign blood. she screamed at their mother. imagine that.
disregard the fact that she was a stranger to them - a stray

wound that everyone forgot existed.
this is their favorite memory of her - she

lying on a yellow sofa, death leaning over her
shoulder. she whispers that she is sorry

but by now, she doesn't know that she's
even saying it. or to whom. it was the

morphine talking, carelessly moving around,
finding resurrection in her veins. it told her stories

of grandeur, stories that she passed
on to her frightened children.

in her passing, her sisters do not
remember her loving notes.

they do not remember her smiles that said
see me. know that i am here.but they are reminded of

everything else - the smell of weakness on
her clothes, fistfuls of her tears, her loss.

they smile a knowing smile.her children,
orphans now, do not say a word. they traipse

down to their newfound sadness and wonder if it is
all true. but when they dream, they

see the bright blue flame of her body. she
advises them not to hurry towards her.

in the morning, they remember their hearts,
so constricted with love that again, they are emptied out.
---------------------

this poem is for my mother, who always smelled of summer rain.

24 and going

When you say thirteen, the first thing that
would probably come to mind
would be bikes. Or more specifically, bike rides
over the small tuft of land near the backyard,
near the road. You practice short
exhibition stunts infront of your friends.
They copy you meticulously, as if
this were a test. Whenever you leap, you
choose a place to land on, a spot that
would break your fall if things go wrong.

Finally, when you grow a little older, you ride
your bike on the street, braving
the new world laid out before you. Notice that
I said when, not if. This is certain, this
swift moving from one time to another; the
passing of certain rituals that you
would have to shed lest everyone leaves
you young and untroubled.

As the years pass, you acquire new exits.
Slowly, you drink in what you think is your life.
You become successful with a few things. You get
someone to love and a pet dog thrown in. You come
home every night tired, willing
yourself to stay awake and not give up. The
bruises you have accepted remain like bright
goldfish do in filthy aquariums. The bruises
you have forgotten stay silent and watchful,
as if they, as well, have been forgiven.

Occasionally, you read new poems, write things
that surprise even you, bake a cake, go on
travels to places you have not been to,
decide on your faith, skin the goose, swing
the bow, walk the walk, stand on the edge;
your life, a mosaic of cliches that you cannot leap out of.
You no longer look at the mirror. It's
been years since you last screamed.


Tomorrow, you wake up and you are
twenty-five. All of a sudden, you are
all flabby arms and slight paunch, hoping
against hope that today would end soon
enough, swiftly. You wish that you had woken
up eighty with left-arm arthritis and
a wheezing cat. Or maybe, not at all.

These are the years, talking like stealthy ghosts. As you lie on
your bed taking time, you discover the finite truth : that there truly is
nowhere to land now, finally, naked as you are.

Uncertainty

likes lying in bed with me. It helps me think of things
that are unusual and imprecise. If I sneeze, it whispers
that this moment, an unusual disease might be sleeping
fitfully in my body. When, in the middle of night, I realize
that I have dreamt of my father, (wearing his fisherman's hat), the wind
tells me that he might not be in a safe place after all. Yesterday, I bought
a new perfume. Enscribed on the pink bottle are these words:
Welcome the new you! This I do not do
but I say, what the hell.
Hell is another idea that I am not confident about. I wonder if
the fuss it causes really means the world
to that man on the street, saying I will perish someday if I don't repent. His urgency
is atrocious, somewhat contrasting with the backdrop of my life. He needs
something, he says.
Everyone does but we are not sure
what it is. We look for this thing we need everywhere; as if once found, it will
save us from things we do not know. I am saddened by all these
bodies, rubbing up against each other, saying,
however indirectly, You are not what I am looking for. And everyone goes
on with their lives, wondering at their loneliness, their sentiments massive weights
that they carry from one life to the next.

(This ambiguity is with us. It is forming a world between us everytime we meet. To bridge the gap, I imagine you old. We are in our last days. Nothing can ever change now except the shape of the moon, the position of stars.)

The last time

ahe wore the bracelet father gave her

was that Tuesday when we went

out and fed pigeons in the park. She held out the

moldy bread crumbs when we came to the fountain and watched

the birds twittering.

When she grew tired, she asked me to sit beside her

and read her a story, something she

used to do when Danny and I were smaller. Twelve and nine - yes, that’s

how old Danny and I were when the

world, they said, was getting a little bigger

than usual. Let’s make it smaller, they said. Make it something

that can fit in a box that

we can drag around and walk like a dog.

But in the park, I forgot all about these things because

my mother looked so pretty then,

smiling that secret smile of hers while

singing a an old blues song.

That day, she and I forgot about the rain

and how treacherous water really is because it swallowed Danny's

body whole, never leaving some of him for us to put our hands on.

This story ends with us realizing that there was really just the two of us,

all hopeful that this kind of peace was everyone else's.

I think at some point, she even whispered,

Come here, closer. But it could have been the wind. It

could have been many things.

hair

If you return to me, the first thing

I would do is get a shave. My hair

is the length of years I have sat here and waited.

It has grown so long that

people five blocks away are complaining

about it. People in China are complaining about it.

In the news yesterday, they featured that old

man in Nantucky, who's saying over and over 'It's itchin'

pretty darned bad!'


Close your eyes when you

think of me. Do not revert to the last time we saw each other

for much has changed. Now, they call me the man of the newest millenium.

I am now everything you have ever wanted.

Whenever I am tempted to look into myself, to see

if the old me is still there, I shrug that

longing off. See, everyone else is changing to suit

everyone else's needs. We are

detergents, improving brands of soap.

Don't feel bad; I am close to fitting in where you are.



Hurry quick, love. Be safe, be true. If minutes

continue to run, all this hair will reach my heart. I will not be

responsible for its twisting

and turning, its strangling hold. If it

succeeds, trust that I will no

longer be here. I will be a figment of your imagination,

the way I have always been.

hand in a jar

Honestly, I don't find anything wrong with stealing. For one thing, we all know that there is a shortage of everything in this world. From cats to pomegrantes, love and accidents. Surely, I say, nothing is wrong with getting something that is not yours. Necessity is the culprit, makes
fools of us all. I am sure that under the heat of the sun you have always felt somewhat lacking; a little out of breath from running for so long. Don't listen to what anyone else says. Just put your hand in there, this cold jar of life, which is everyone's jar, if you think about it. Today, when you pull up your hand, it might be clutching a mouse, dead for 12 years now, smelling so foul that you wish you had died with that aunt of yours who never loved you. You are getting the slow feeling that you were always alone. You keep hoping in the secrets of this jar, wishing that finally it will be there --- the thing you have waited for so patiently. Imagine this then : one ordinary day, you pull it up and it is true to the form you have always thought it would appear to you. You wait for the feeling to overwhelm you; for this object to say I have always been yours. But it remains numb and golden, the eye of a god.

local gods

at first, it was not inventiveness but a kind of love that drove us into it -- the fashioning of something out of those afternoons. not everything
had a name, or could be humbly defined by
circumstance. we were much older then -- older
to the people who knew us, who believed that
we knew a thing or two about breathing properly, at the
right staccato points. now, things are more
ruinous, infinitely larger than they truly are. we have set our facts,
felt them on our skins, have seen them in our seperate mirrors. oh how
lovely to still hold true -- this belief that we were once
flying saucers, our own
metaphors.now that we are older, you say my lines hold nothing from you. what
is left is the vision of your slender body thrusting forward, always toward
brighter things.