sangkutsa— sana'y kartada nuwebe


      stove -- so much inner blue
            in this gruesomeness,
          still soft is the orifice, maiming
         the speech whirling in warm press;

     hand -- to just blindingly toss out
      in wording it so that then this is true:
       we once had each other in the
        simmer of feelings, leaving
         our shadows crazy-eyed in
     elegiac silence.

      rawness -- boiled to a broth:
        thawing largeness, tipping away in
           and of feeling.

    final stages --- half-done in waiting,
      half-undone in wanting. darkness
       condoles with the aperture of
        clouds twitching to rain tritely
   against the tiled floor. islands of
       wet footmarks make the traverse
           viciously slippery on my way
    to your side of breathing.

     all of it -- hand's gentle breeze,
      salt of lake-eyes, melee of tactical pressures sizing down spots gleamed
       and honeyed with ires. a hiss
  on landscaped neck where a peregrinating perfume sits, feverish with
       desire and nothing else,
    blood boiling, whistling through the pores are the saltine sweat
     poised, almost
                               for the mouth's readiness
          in consummation.