Areas, Gray (by Mookie Katigbak)

Now that I have your mind by heart,
Silence becomes this space
Between us, singular as breath.

Now that you have my heart by mind,
You say, "Silence has a way so terribly exact
Even when it means neither no or yes—"

So all the meanings we unsay, we let
Close in on us in gray ambivalence.
If it weren't so precise—

You do not want my heart.
I do not want your mind.

Quiver

by Mookie Katigbak-Lacuesta

Speed of neither wind nor ripple,

neither hawk nor dove; she darted

quick across the woods through blister’s

roots, and hyacinths, the river’s blue

narcissus—

gleamed like a pair of scissors

clipping silk. And with what haste

did I proceed, imploring limb and bone

to make the light as we sped trackless

through the night, and I flagged behind.

Gave her the lead by small leagues,

and watched her quicken when the miles

between us vanished by degrees.

Now the light within me slows, quivers

somewhere into color. I know her

like a heft in the blood, like an arrow

that arrives with a sudden red notion.

And wherever you go, I am to follow.

from "The Telling"

What's earth-stopping is the howl
of a train expressly on its way
to not here. It moans a phantom hunger
all the more terrible because unseen
--Hear it?--This is the sound of all
that rifles through us and does not stay.
Everything is in the details: wail of the train
through tracks unseen, destination unknown.
When I show you how you and I
have more hunger than we know
what to do with, I am telling you
goodbye before you know it.

-Mookie Katigbak