A Missing Party Guest
It’s an old habit
Like opening windows
For fatal air,
The drugged willowy
Confluence of events.
What is missing
But being ghost
To actual touch of surfaces
As the gilded noise
Of your guests,
While I hack the business
Of reading this country
From obscure points,
Islands looming like
Dark wings of thoughts.
The rigor of a boat
Trip at night
To weld severed lives,
Stronger in the wake
Of waves.
As for present
You may keep
All those floating contraptions
Space makes of us,
The radiant and buoyant,
The bright corners of living.
In one instance I marvel
At the children of Mindanao,
In long dresses and shawls,
The Quran clutched
To their bosom;
They’re luminous, ethereal
On streets. Goodbye, goodbye,
I say, you’re so beautiful
I blink into nothingness.
Published in Philippines Free Press
Yokoshigure 