The Night Is a Clock Chiming
The night is a clock with eyes
chiming in another language.
Lonely husband, your eyes
remake my being, and how we
look from where we stand.
You from a caesura of loss
standing and holding our gaze.
We do this until our vision blurs.
Time is someone’s back
blocking our view,
which is now a throng
of old people in coats and hats.
Time winding into a burning
river, in a city on fire
and then into a stubborn mountain
that refuses to move an inch.
Time was not the answer,
even if it towered over us.
Trusting my dreams, I began to walk
beyond the mountain. I kept looking
at things I could touch:
pebbles on the ground, olive pits,
gum wrappers, a leaflet
with the stenciled face of Mao.
I held my gaze at two black
stones in my hand
until I developed a new method
of hearing. And there you were again.
My darling, darling, darling—
I could see you shining plainly
with your crown of light.
My hand in your hand, and time
moving below the bridge
and on the bridge as we drift
along the river of babel
and disappear into the flood.
At Sea Inside the Body of Rizal
The bullet blossomed like a June bride
and decided to take up residence
as a beautiful amendment
to this body’s constitution. The bullet
will not work a double shift at Target.
The bullet which has made itself
unavailable to servitude—operates on
a fuzzy logic that connects the living to
the manifestation of a great upheaval.
That as a bright star, it cannot
be aligned like the planets. A star
destined to be torn asunder
like a house divided, or nightfall
on a traffic snarl. If you hear it coming,
think of a song with a weak
zeeping lisp of a mechanical bird.
Think of a bot with a heart of gold
flying south propelled only by
a selfless desire for pause and rest
from a world of unspeakable pain,
diving into a pool at a desert resort.