On the third day, I found river, and plunged the wisp of my body into its current. As I learned to breathe without you, as I mimicked the river’s lullaby, you appeared upon its banks, your body so fissured, your eyes the ravaged jewels of an umber earth. There were no words for the sorrow bolting through me then, as I watched your hands touch the scarring place where I began. On this third day, my mirror, we learned lamentation, and shadow.

On the fourth day, I sang a dirge, the river my harmony. From afar, you watched me, as the unseen hand from above offered you reparations for your brokenness. More than anything, I thirsted to embrace you in our ocean, for its saltwater to heal us both. But my mirror, the memory of your darkness welled up inside me every time I drew near. On this fourth day, I learned to weep. On this fourth day, the scars hardened over your heart.

On the fifth day, I dreamed such fire, the birth of suns and thunder. I dreamed this garden, reduced to ash. I dreamed that from loss, we began again, a we that knew only of being whole, of sharing heart, and breath, and salt. A feast of we, luminous as the secret of fruit and seed. A we impervious to cleaving, to fracture. On this fifth day, I opened my eyes and I came to know of hope.

On the sixth day, I came to you, and told you of this dream. I touched your scars. You whispered a prayer. I gave you my secrets. You gave me your words. I asked for your breath. You gave me your seed. And as our bodies folded into each other, we dreamed the same honeyed light. Upon awakening, you named me for the morning. But on this sixth day, the unseen hand from above wrested you from me, cleaved us in two once again, and weighted the heaviest sorrow upon me. Never once did he show himself.

On the seventh day, my love, I surrendered.

THE BAMBOO’S INSOMNIA

THE BAMBOO’S INSOMNIA

I can’t sleep. There is a poet stuck between the love lines of my palms. And I would tell her to get out if I could, but there is a poet stuck inside the cradle of my bones and tendons.

DIWATA

1.

There once lived a strange deity who was only strange because few strove to know her. ¡Bárbara! ¡Que barbaridad! taunted her eldest brother, who was lightning. Her own light was confined to a glass vial. She knew stars an ascension of pearls hung by Gigante on the highest tree boughs. When he danced, earth descended beneath his feet. There below, a vain woman, earthbound. She knew tongues of many men, those who brought boats and steel, those who brought silks and jade, those who brought the cross.

But this story lacks proper symmetry.