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.

dancing at aunt martha's

Looking back, it was strange how
hard it was raining during someone's
birthday. You were six years old and birthdays
and rain did not equate. That afternoon formed something
delirious in your mind that you could not stop
thinking about. Cousin Fredrich was wearing an orange
hat with a feather stuck on it, a sour note. There
were 12 of you then and Aunt Martha, of course, and
Uncle Benedict who kept on blinking
for some reason. You remember that the first game was
pin the tail on the donkey. In your hand, the tail seemed
short and droopy and had no more hair. You
remember feeling sorry for the donkey but
you did not question his fate because the house's walls were lined with love.
Aunt Martha's eyes wove dreams on your white arm.
Putting on a Beatles record, she announced that you had to dance.
You were supposed to know all the steps. You remember making a few
hesitant moves, then a half-hearted shimmy.
I want to tell you that it was only natural for you to pull back.
You spotted an anonymous
boy in the crowd and dragged him to the center of things.
He was just some boy, same age as you were, perhaps. You are not certain now
about any facts regarding him but you remember
the strange roughness of his white shirt. Years after, you find
that you could not change. Always now, someone beside you, refusing the dance.

a quick note while looking at a mirror in a different building

Turn around and there I am.
The lights here are more unforgiving, so
different from the ones I am used to.
Something about
foreign feeling makes you feel
all bland inside -- an overripe orange. My
face looks botched up, ready
to be crumpled up at a moment's indecision. I am paper --
still blank but self-important. I do not know
if I am ready to say, Something new please, this time.

this poem is a chair

It is composed of four corners,
hard edges, material that burns easily.
Think of all the things it might mean
to the space it occupies. You can do more than
just sit on it. My friend put his books on it once.
If you choose to be a little fanciful, you can
ask a green ostrich to stand on it, sing its
heart out. This is anyone's harbor but
it is no one's refuge. It is still too small --
it needs to be restructured for it to resemble something
close to home. Some people like to argue
about what it represents. The way it just settles here
must mean something to someone. They call me up
at 2 am, insisting that it is more than
its parts. But no, really, it is just a chair. And yes,
it will hold.

for/against things that will come to pass

It was hard to recognize, then, what he actually meant by sending me those postcards. They were sent every Tuesday when dusk was not permitted to show its face. Part of my confusion was because of the season they were sent. It was so warm then; not the proper time, really, for personal stories scribbled intently on white sheets. In the afternoons, oddly, the postcards' faces smelt of rain. I was more confused about why he chose Tuesdays. Was there supposed to be something good happening on Tuesdays? Were there supposed to be bright-eyed girls hanging on to the arms of their green boys, so beside themselves with newness? Or was there the possibility of singular voices of clarinets, stomping forever inside my mother's cooking dress?No, no, those wild postcards were meant for something else -- for vigilant and cold springs, far from love.

chair-love

When the one met the other, it said, "I will chair-ish you forever." This, without knowing

much about its companion, save for its color and approximate size. You see

in the chair-world, they don't get to meet a lot of other chairs. But since

they were both placed on this plane at this opportune time, they

declared it fate and gave in to the rare luster o' chair-love.

They spoke in chair-whispers when the stadium closed and told each other

about the dreams that used to keep them awake. During days when they

were left out in the rain, the other chair laughed and laughed because the raindrops

tickled its legs. Whenever this happened, the other chair willed its arms to

serve a purpose other than support for

tired, confusing bodies. They did not talk about their inability to

touch, the way they secretly think about what the other smells like. They want a dirty

love --- one that would involve body parts, missed chances,

sloppy kisses. For the first time, they questioned the distance that kept one chair from another,

an unlikely life. They consulted quack doctors,

voodoo masters, dark women who danced under the sun. But nothing could be done.

I will not tell you if they finally drifted apart, if one of them

moved somewhere far and fitful, or if they spent their lives reaching for each other.

But I will tell you this:

In the chair world, there are no miracles.

(Like in ours, love. Like in ours.)

what everyone knows

What everyone knows is

it's hard to love in this body, difficult to cradle another's

in this limited frame. Arms, legs, your fingertips only begin

where the other ends. Say for example,

nights when you feel so cold but

you do not know how to get warmer, you think about that body,

that frame that you'd like to fit in yourself.

You think about how nice it would be to put your hands

all the way in its stomach, feel its squirmy insides. Next

would be your right foot in, then your left.

Then everything, all your body parts

squeezing into another's. People

outside that body would hear you moving around in it,

having a grand time amidst that body's

soft edges. Maybe this will do it -- will help cure the common

cold, will stop wars. Maybe this will define what we need, will make us

stop groping in broad daylight. Maybe this will reveal the

heart of your heart to me, something I borrowed a long time ago.

your poems

your poems should go some place ---

the tip of your tongue,

beyond no entry signs,

between a stranger's toes, steeped drunkenly

in familiar feeling.

zigzagging on zebra stripes, or,

among hushed voices in the next room.



your poems should belong somewhere ---

at the corner drugstore,

in the long closed diner with mothballs for eyes,

sampling cities that like to let go, to start out;

they should be standing on vacant lots

which never held grudges, kept giving.



your poems should be seen from certain vantage points ---

nestled comfortably between the lines of your

mother's resigned face and the light,

always that light, neon, on your

brother's revealed stomach;

people should see them holding hands

with the one you love, and then, maybe later,

something more 'neath the sheets.



they say your poems should be travelling well

into the world by now --- alone, with daylight

as their only umbrella.

but you know that they are here,

the equivalent of a lifetime of kisses. they

lie with you at night and one after another, make you

climax so many times that your eyes are two scraggly

Xs. they like drawing conclusions

about god on your walls.

in the early mornings, you sit beside

each other. it's a quiet

marriage, one you are happy to be in.

sometimes, for the heck of it, they reach out, shake you.

why i am not married

Sometimes falling is

not at all what they say it is. The survivors always leave

the vital information out --- the after-blood;

the foot out the door,

even at the onset. It starts with a common

choice, between this and the

other less enviable option of cooking dinners alone

and going stag on parties. You never saw

it coming, you say, that afternoon when

a friend called you up, reassuring you that it's just a

short trip. They thought the fresh air

would do you good. You have been lying about

your loneliness for a while now; oh, how

fun an empty house is, you said. While packing,

you remember promising yourself that

you'll come back intact --- arms, ears,

your mistreated esophagus

all in one place. From your vantage

point in the backseat, everything

still seems safe. Amy and Lita are playing

crosswords, everyone else

laughing at the joke about fish and bicycles.

In fact, just sitting there, the road

moving below you, you were happy. You did not

know this then, for you took journeys

at face value, but you will admit to the

feeling while picking up your

laundry -- one night years later -- a

bag containing, always, one of everything.

Once you reach your destination,

it is every man for himself. Your

friends are disappearing, hurtling

their bodies down that secular abyss. You finger

the tight rope that would connect

you to the place you'll be leaving, thinking

about that time when you were 10

and fascinated with old man Roger, who died

scaling the largest building uptown.

You did not know Roger, did not know that

he had three kids who never

travelled far after that day. But this

is you, you are different.

You do things with eyes closed, your

body not just a body now because it is moving

faster than it ever has. You

feel the rope failing you. The survivors

are at the foot of the hill;

they scream that they are tasting stars.

At the last minute, you try to

see if it is true. What meets your eye

is that body before you,

yours, falling again and again, against its chosen hour.

starting out in the evening

We should have started out early this morning,

when the leaves were just peeking out, teary-eyed over

something that happened overnight. Yes, this morning,

before I cooked you breakfast, before the milk

curdled into a frown. Or maybe, it would

have been better if we decided on it a little after lunch. Yes, lunch,

when you still have that rare satisfaction all curled up

inside your stomach. You

could've put on those trousers I like and it should've

been all done by now. Really, that would've been the best time,

we could've both done everything else we set out to

do long before, even leaving out some

minutes for that coffee you make so well. But you're right, the best

time should've been at around three, when everything

seems enough, the world an old painter's pallet --

orange, then yellow, then a still-gold,

so rare these days. We could've have felt old without getting old, your

legs wrapped around mine under that cherry tree you used to like

spending time under. Or we could've walked around the block for a

while, waving at people we don't know, but putting ourselves

out, still, because the world is a better place

with all these sweet nobodies to play our funny roles for.

But really, not like this, us setting out this late.

My eyesight is getting worse, you know. Sometimes, I'd just like to leave

my eyeballs by the mailbox, see if they can fare

better than having them attached to

my soft face, skin all loose and discouraged. You're getting tired, too,

I know. I hear your hip bones groaning when

we turn corners. I have this fear, see, something as strong as the wish I

hold --- that things could've been

better if I've seen you earlier today. Then, we could've packed a lot of

memories in my grandfather's old (old!) portmanteau, his

face stuck on one side, scratched

out, as if there was a declaration of a prize behind it.

I could've looked at your body, the sun a spotlight,

and said I've seen you during better days. But now, things can't be

helped. If you think about it, we're still okay. The lamplights

make your skin feel familiar, like a book one likes

to keep reading over and over. It's as if we've grown

up together, instead of the two of us, unlike so many others,

starting out in the evening.

what was to come

We ate out that Friday after the ceremony --

on my lapel, a white ribbon. My father

wished it was for valor but it was not,

only for excellence in creative writing.

The misnomer made him uncomfortable,

prompted him to look at his fingers crusted

with 10 year-old dirt. My mother

was beaming while eating a chicken leg straight

out of the bucket. She smiled and talked about

the upcoming summer workshop. New

writers this time, she hoped. And boys, she whispered with

her signature jugular wink.

I was weak with longing for

something different, maybe fish

at Pizzazi's. My eyes burned and burned,

imagining that fish's long tail,

it's charcoaled mouth, coalescing into a tight fist.

I thought about its pain, how I'd

like to measure it, seek it out as something

different from what the chicken

went through. At the corner of my eye,

I see my father picking at his food. His silence knows

about the fish in my mind, my slow consumption

of impossible things. He is ready to put up a white flag.

But it is my mother, after so many years,

how she sat there, random and ordinary in her happiness,

who has made me wishing now that I was still

there, both of them on either side of me,

alive and unknowing of what was to come.

the sadness

The sadness you give me rests

as a moustache on my mouth, curling up at the sides.

It looks comfortable there, makes my mouth look lived-in,

rustic, even. Some of my friends tell me it doesn't become me.

I agree with them during most mornings

but at random hours, I find myself combing lints of happiness

out of it, stretching it as far as it

would go. Yesterday, I said

this aloud: This is the only true

thing about me. My dinner

companion left me abruptly, tied an

old chair to the door, which

meant that he might not come back. It's

been five years and

I've stopped hiding it, even from strangers.

They come to me,

asking me to hold their grocery bags

for them and do not return. They assume this sadness

is my real mother, one that ties me to the

oceans I can never cross. When I watch you

sleeping, I wonder

if it would look better as a necklace around your neck. One day,

I might just reach out and

place it over your head, see if you'd think it heavy.

if it was worth everything.

letter to suzie

Let me begin by saying that

I like you this way.

Far away and distinct from the people

who are all here - talking, eating, dancing,

complaining with me, alongside me, before I do,

after I do. Sometimes, the chaos that they engender

is something that I'd like to keep in box, wrap up with a red,

festive ribbon. I'd put it in a spot

where there is sunlight. All these

experiences, you understand, must grow into something.

Maybe a bilbao tree, all branches and high twigs that

I can't reach. Or it would be nice if it

sprung full force into a dark and jealous cloud.

But what I'd really like these things to be

are the shoes you use going to that factory you

used to write me about. They'd

clamber around your feet, forming a forcefield,

impenetrable but light as love.

I'm sorry if I have come across as too forward.

So let's talk about the

leaves that stay stubbornly on your doorstep.

They are picketting, you know. Complaining

about their existence. (But oh how I wish I were

one of them, lightly, lightly, hanging

on to your old, tight boots)

XXX, Sincerely.

you are here

Some common words inserted in poetry:

hand, which may mean help, which may mean god, which may mean

love. There is ocean, which may be your mother, quietly

cooking an evening meal. It may mean your

sadness, that opens and gives itself to the world. There is

also happiness, always elusive, always the last thing to be found.

Keys can also be easily spotted in poems but never

in your own house. They give way

to doors, which may be sturdy or weak or needs

a magic word before they can be opened.

they are never just doors. There are a lot more, I am sure --

word after word lolling around in your

expectant tongue, waiting for the opportune

moment to pounce at some hapless reader.

They are breaking and entering, doing

everything they can to make your poems

assume the monotony of brittle leaves

put under microscopes. I want to know if you

see me in this poem, standing in one

uncertain corner. You see the red lamp I am

holding? It's new, but they

say it breaks easily. I'd like to ask you,

though, to leave some lines for me because it gets cold at

night around these parts. I hope you've noticed that I have

changed my lipstick brand between the

first two words. If you get a glimpse of the word love,

precariously perching on the edges

of these last lines, that just means

that I am getting ready to come home.

Apple Man

I don't want to lose you -- Apple Man, someone who

I vaguely knew. All I can recall now is

the distinct, hurried sound of fruits taken out from a paper

bag, a certain light-shift from the window to the door.

What it illuminates is a picture I have of you. You are

staring at a tombstone, anonymous to me, the sunshine glaring on

your bald spot. Fat, with your shirt sticking to the sides of your

belly-- not at all the type who would pick the juiciest fruits for

a child who was not even his. Inserted between random pages

of an old album is a picture of me, surrounded by the

reddest apples in the world; my expression comical, caught

in midbite.The memory stops there in

that small canvas, not fit for any occasion. You see,

my childhood is seeping out of me, forming gentle puddles wherever

I go. Remembering you is no longer easy, has not been

translated into a happier morning.

I do not want to lose you -- Apple Man, the void in the center

of all things.

to anna

I want to tell you that in this light,

I see you as an orange. I hold

oranges in high regard, you know. The first fruit;

in itself, essentially alone. I can see the beginnings

of history's rough seeds in you, their importance

half-hearted but hidden in your pulpy sadness.

Preserve your integrity --- repeat I AM AN

ORANGE. Repeat it 10 times 'til the words come out singing.

It is important to believe in something unimportant--

like phone calls of dead soldiers to their dead wives, like the

solitary flight of birds in the afternoon. Let your prayers be

addressed to yourself. After a rough day

say, Dear orange, I thank you for the strength

you have summoned today.I admire how stoic you

looked in the middle of rows of

other oranges. I liked how I could still

tell you apart from all of them.

After that, sleep. Don't wallow in your

orange-y thoughts about your orange-y day.

Avoid wondering why

no one has picked you among all the others.

You have watched the process

so many times through the shop's

glass window--- the grocer's hand

like a mime's, placing each orange in a

paper bag, so tenderly, as if they were

short-tempered gods. Time will come,

my young orange, when the fruit that is you

would be realized as something more.

Don't be afraid of being alone. Learn to whistle.

When someone does eventually seek you out, don't hang

all your hopes on his shoulders. If you do,

do not be surprised if he flails under

the weight of crossed-fingers and afterglow.

But grow in yourself, be stout and happy

with your distinct roundness. Anyway,

you do not have to listen to me.

I am old and the light

has not decided on anything. At times it withholds more than

it tells. But you are not my story

and you are no one's fruit.

Like right now, the wry twist of your mouth

says that you are already far away,

beyond the once-mighty breath, rolling

on and on; freedom -- the only sound that keeps you going.

beginnings are the cheese in my ice cream float

first, there were only two people sitting on a tree. one was looking at Japan and the other at a star. and at first, they said, hey, this will work. let us put our heads together and try to find a way to get out of this tree. they have never learned equations, having spent so much time where they were, so they couldn't make a graph. they never learned how to make ropes, or sharpen pieces of wood, or dance, or skip, hop, nor jump, or make wine out of water, nor fashion everyday miracles out of air. and all the while, the other thought, i am the only one trying to find a way out of this, and the other, separate from her, thought that it would be good to get a boat because it was summer and it would be nice to go someplace far away when they got down from this tree.

and that boat came between them because the other, who was separate from her, kept thinking about it while munching on leaves, swishing his legs to and fro, then sideways. and the boat became larger and assumed a yellow tint. it loomed so large in her dreams at night that she herself turned yellow for three days.

after some time, she said, i am giving up. maybe i am tired of this. we're looking at different things, anyway. and the other said, well maybe it's time for us to sing something else together. but, said the other, we have never learned how. it was always just you by yourself or me alone, but never together and now its too late because our individual notes are too different and separate. so if we ask a passerby, please sir, have you seen our tune around? he'd say no. i am betting my right foot on it, she who was also now separate from him said. and the other, mustering the last lie, whispered, well i've always known that.

and they continued with what they were doing from the beginning, with one looking at Japan, and the other, at a star. i'm sure that when i first began the story, you thought you knew precisely how it would end -- with a kiss and a life. but really, that just goes to show how unreliable beginnings are.

so much remains

On the last day, you may find it hard to remember

most things. You consider the laughter but

laughter, sadly, is common, too random,

anyone else's. You try to think of their

hands, however, hands

are not as sacred as they once were; even,

admittedly, hers, resting on his bare shoulder.

Faces would be another popular theme, but faces change with

time, no matter how hard we who are left behind try to tell ourselves

that they have not. What I think I remember

are some moments --- her sitting beside me while

riding to town, or a morning when the sunlight formed an

almost-circle around his head, a likely halo. And what

about that day when everyone was laughing about

a dastradly private joke and they were both looking

at me, as if I were responsible for the joke, among

many other laughable things. It's sadness in a box,

the birthday boys chant. Our primary skill is

saying goodbye. No one leaves but everyone seldom returns.

They know this because they are older now -- men with

ghosts for companions, their bare backs toughened by all their

lost afternoons. But on this last day, they brace

themselves for new goodbyes. Au Revoir. Sayonara.

Paalam. However you say it, it remains the same. However you

remember it, so much remains.

late birthday poem '08

My mother used to

tell me when I was younger that

my face was not hers, not her husband's, as well.

It belonged to the sea, she said, and my small poems

were fish that kept

moving with the waves. They move because you are, she used

to say, in that conversational manner

of hers that irritated me. Now that

I am half past 20, I hardly believe that anymore. I mean,

what I really want is to hold on to that smirk

she had while she said it. The

years confused me, made me bored

with memory and atonement. But I have forgiven this woman

and her hard eyes, so dark,

they were almost golden. If it is at all possible

to end this poem the way she had,

nakedly losing and having everything all

at once, this is how I would have done it.