keeping

i tried to put your smile in the cookie jar
but your heart was in the cellophane bag
with another cookie.

who said a cookie should be in a ceramic jar
when all that it takes for one to keep
is another cookie.

enchanted

blue-gray waves of your hair muddle the sky
and the lake below where speck-boats race to the volcano;
did i see you once in a few minutes of napping
in the bus that hummed your name all through the trip
amid the barkers' calls and children's whimpers?
was it your hair in my face, rosewater and fresh sweat
rising from the soft strands that cushioned my cheek?
was it your voice that tinkled with laughter
at my serious puns and terribly lost jokes?
i have minced all my fragments of imagination
and yet you are there in the sky, on the lake, on the concrete
slab where confused ants scurry and bump into each other,
on my cheeks where the rain has fallen in blue-gray waves
and in my hands where the cold seeps in but where your
softness kindles a thousand blushes.

elegy

i can't say i did what i had to do
when i don't know what i didn't do
blast the styrofoam protection in our box
who juggles who and what movement is there
when you can't feel the floor or the bench
when you jumped with the nylon cord around
your neck heck there isn't even any time to
say stop i'm falling when the floor is just
a few inches away you must have gained weight
you must have lost a key or a pen or a girl
but there isn't time to think there's only
now and the bench and goodbyes have been said
that's what's nice about cellular phones
they get your message through just like the
cord around your neck we don't need the
styrofoam in the box or plastic bubbles
of which bursting is an addiction i'm not
making any sense but then i wasn't there
i couldn't stop you i could've done so
a long time ago but i didn't so i bury you
with my non-styro tears and waves
of bitter vomit.

four candles

four candles on the altar
one for the dead
rosalia with her soft chants
novenas for all ailments
and scapularies to ward off
all the ill spirits;

one for the sick
rosanna whose wailing
broke the warm humid night
of frenzied mayflies flying
to their demise;

one for the hopeless
rosita sitting by the window
praying for the sky to have shape
the wind to take color
and forever to end;

and one for the lost
rosa of the lustrous black hair
that covered half her naked body
roaming the snaking asphalt streets
of the godless city
searching for rosalia's bones,
rosanna's breath,
rosita's heart,
rosa.

fluid

water on your cheek down to your belly
without the salt, without the sugar
i saw you smile at the monkey in the cage
maybe it knows you stole the space in my mind
and laid it out in the sun to dry
to shrivel up for keeping and loaning
when the rains come and you'll be gone
without a syllable or a wink like old times
who cares about tears when there can be
space.

dragon tryst

the night was a shawl of ice
until you tucked me in its folds
the shadows and jasmine confused
with the sodden grass.
a gust of fire from your mouth
seared my lips
and soldered our tongues.

i was yours
and you, mine.

but we belonged to the watchman
lurking behind the acacia.

he's the man

he shuffles down the naked avenue
thongs displacing the asphalt
ipod in his shirt pocket
plastic-coated wires searching his ears
tiny silver hoops biting into his lobes
i am the man, i am the man
woman kissed me last night
kissed me and held me tight
i am the man, i am the man
until a chunk of concrete probably used
to stop a jeepney from rolling away
stands in the man's way
and he trips and keels over
what the fuck shit shit shit
shit shit shit shit
he's the man
he's the man.