Lately
When I think of them ‘out of sight, out of mind’,
out of love, out the door with nothing but the past
slammed shut from behind,
and the present a hot stink of asphalt on a road to
nowhere, to nothing, simmering in the dying
half-light, the wind dry, listless, the birds still as if
wingless, the trees in the distance even more distant,
more dense; but suppose
this lull
were only a random walk among shadows,
the scent of night flowering, moonlight
igniting the familiar air, each recall a step up a path
to a door, the turn of a key, home shining
like faces so endearing, so empty, it scorches the heart.Scent
And suppose what is recalled in the heat of goodbye wilts on a wrist, perfume like loose ends of a story that insist on a one-of-a-kind opera, fandango by the roadside of the closed La Rambla, cardboard cutouts of pigeons and tapas by the plaza, live mannequins, rotundas, Columbus aground, sifting page after page that opens to a window where infestation and drought narratives curb foundering memory.
Leavings
We empty ourselves when we have held too much too long.
-Kathleen Graeber
How would it have been if I had simply
gotten up from the chair and
crossed the two arms
length to where you, hold slipping
but still you, spoke not my name but what
I meant to you. I wanted to echo
your silences, as once I did, although
by long distance, your happiness.
I want to believe some faint part of you
would have known some spark in
me was still with you to light your going.All Told
This is not how you would say it if you were saying it. A trick of light is all it was, and you a speck of possibilities. Hexes, hoaxes, possibilities, even ships have somewhere to go. The book, sent express, a letting go but hardly over the edge. More compass, more edge in a long pause, but look how soon becomes too late. Soon an off-the-rail crossing for the perfect landing. On the dot is perfect but this is not how you would say it.
Neon
What did we do but decide to meet under the same configuration
of stars, the same old moon—but there is no real moon, only
neon—just you and me—and nothing between us. We have no fixed
past, no future, no reason to keep a promise made on a whim…
Is this home, this spare room, and me in your arms? You close your
eyes, and we kiss, out of love, out of friendship, or is it folly—
or destiny—that keeps us going down the long road that neither ends
nor begins to close the distance between us?
*All poems are read by Hanah Faraon.
Isabela Banzon's recent poetry collection is Maybe Something (University of the Philippines Press, 2015). She taught English, literature, and creative writing at the University of the Philippines Diliman.