1
There's the bright orange of the two lone lights
open in my room: the eye-glazing screen
and the power-sucking bulb; there's the darkness outside
pitted with brief lights
and the half-full moon inverted
over my voyeur neighbor's house; I'm naked but the aircon's
never cool enough; I suspect I'm not in the right country,
I think my phone is dead but say lobat,
I look out over the sterile snow
that suddenly turns to mist like
the rough bodies of those we
proselytizers and infertile
mothers loved, hands clasped
in the dark. No I will not succumb.
There is no night that will
not lead our eyes to close,
nor blidness when oracular dreams
refuse to answer Hineni, Hineni.
There shall be no turn.
Deus caritas est,
without excess. There's a voice
crying out in the wilderness
over the eternal fire-
works over Boracay,
over the sterile snow--
2
bullshit
broke my world apart,
bullshit cracked my voice
and made it darker,
they talked with a poet's voice
and I knew I lived in a book,
along the waves, on a screen
an unwanted leviathan's ass looking out
I thought real tongues were simpler
human lines
shorter, and us
a limited country
bounded by the sea
bounded by the edge of streets
full of tourists
bounded by hands that hold,
hands that grope
3
Sometimes I mingle memories
with dreams
but this one I remember
clearly, the elaborate
tatoo on her left arm,
her mousy face, her thin-
framed glasses and the piercings
on her nose, her ears
her half-American voice
my gaze shifting here and there
Sometimes I watch
her welcome me
in a foreign tongue,
toss away her four-
legged bag, and lift
her dress above her chin.
Sometimes I look
out over her shoulder
to the world passing us by,
raging over my choice
of thoughts, of words,
as if I had a choice.
Sometimes I close my eyes.
