CROSSING COMPROMISES

there's nothing like crosswords on sunday morning
after waking late from a dream-filled saturday night
coffee in one hand
a pen in the other.

he sits cross-legged,
hunched over the bistro coffee table
eyeing the tiny lines criss-
crossing the corner of a page,
familiar as scars.

the sun shines through the kitchen windows
between the yellow curtain
his lover picked for his birthday last year
after they had argued over decorations
in their newly-found apartment.

he compromised the kitchen window
for the bedroom rug.

he crosses himself
believing tranquility to be found
in solitude, newspaper in hand.

yet,
what is a ten-letter word for being alone
on a day like this
after HE promised it won't happen

again

MANTRA

Trill

a vibrato
deep

in your throat
swirl

a mantra around 'til I
burst

open, the length encased in second skin
breaking

a flower
forms

from fingers floating free.

If the trick prior is transparent,
you asked me to write a poem
while standing over you.
But my poetry cannot emerge
from moments like this.
Only when it's just me
and five fingers

flying free.

After the overflow of precipitous rupture
star jasmine imprints around your neck, clogging your nostrils,
breaking into your breathing,
how can I, then make light of your need
to hear poetry in a most unpoetic position,
though many have tried
in that particular position
proving pointedly the existence of god
cause god spelled backwards is...

ON MOLUKEIA

, beyond

the strand of white-duned beach

, where

tourists sunbathe in the nude

, past

the plush polo grounds

, where

chestnut horses canter

, clear of

the cedar houses

, across

the narrow airstrip

, where

adventurers glide for twenty minutes

, stands

a bivouac

, where

trucks, tents, and soldiers

, are

camped as though painted against the scene.


A mile further down

Kaena shivers with life.