Merlie M. Alunan Quotes

wind stinging our faces
overhead the birds
shrieking turn back
turn back turn back

behind us, look,
bright fields, the sea
glinting gold!

we've come this far
chasing the rain,
the sun at our heels.

Trapped in a conspiracy
of chance we sit close inside
this sardine can on wheels
horning the gasfume streets

of this dust-tired afternoon.
How your shoulders
strain your shirt; a stray wind cools
your sweat in my skin.

"This heat," I mutter,
"melts the very bones,"
saying this as I feel
inside me awakening

sweet April, fragrant May
unfolding flower fingers
on her lap.

We kept a jarful of keys
on a forgotten shelf
in the house.
What doors they opened,
or what they kept forever locked,
before they came by accident
or chance into our little jar,
we never learned.

She battened on a truth
she knew I too must own:
when what's at stake
is loyalty or love,
hers are the true rights.

Sour wine laughter song
a bagful of wishes
my satchel of skin
my brittle bones -

Chasing the rain
The sun at my heels

These boys bent over their food,
intense as harmless cubs feeding,
rapt with every morsel melting
in their mouths - feral rhythm
moves their very breath,
their strong young teeth chomping,
grinding the gristle of meat.

So little it takes to pleasure them -
they eat what they can get,
savoring a fine fillet
with equal fervor as the bits
stuck to a bone or clinging to a plate.
Watching them feed, I seem to see them
under my very eyes growing, bones
lengthening, muscle stretching,
their very skulls
thickening around each one's own
danger zones of memory.

She flutters a hand and history
breathes - innocence returns,
sin ripens on the tree of knowledge,
death comes to be.