At end of desert,
My bones by her oasis,
So real was mirage.

I left with very little, expecting a week or perhaps two in the city, quick cash and then home to the sand of my beaches and the touch of my bed. It has been exactly two weeks and I am starting to say that I live here. There's an exhilaration attached to the detachment of a one-way ticket, I am a thousand people a day while being none, I can walk away from conversations without feeling guilty, there is not one person who cares enough about me to bother with my affairs-it is absolute freedom. Yet there is a loneliness that hangs on the hinge of liberation...a traveler has the world in their heart.  We cannot stop ourselves from stuffing our experiences inside, gluttons of the road with the horizon in our eyes. Sometimes, though, we lose sight of what we wanted all along and then begin to search for what we desire, which becomes blurred and tangled by time zones and climates and languages...our stomachs are always empty and our chests are always aching for the unknown.  It can break a person. I was on the bus back from East Hampton when an older man asked me why I was crying:
"I don't know",  I said, "I suppose I just realized that this city takes everything from you, and you must prove yourself to earn it back".
He told me what they all do:if you can make it here, you can make it anywhere
I turned back towards the window before asking, "when you came here, did you have nothing, too?"
The man nodded and smiled. Maybe he was lying, but he gave me 50 dollars and paid my cab fare. I hugged him goodbye and he wished me luck. I don't know how he knew I was completely broke with no way to get back to my apartment, but I cannot imagine the forty-block walk with three bags. There is a kindness in a fellow traveler, one more seasoned than we are, who will always understand what it is to be poor and hungry and tired. But we chose this life, I chose this life, when I stepped on the plane with no way back. I realized this as I was locked atop a rooftop in SoHo, watching the pink and blue of sunrise with champagne on my lips. It is okay to admit your inadequacies, to ask for help, as long as you appreciate the sheer genius of the universe. That, after all, is why this life calls to us.

I found you.
Amidst distant humming grasshoppers
and humid evening air,
I found you.
Or maybe you found me.
Maybe you’re finding me.
2 am came early last night;
our words far too honest,
our eyes far too tired.
Maybe our bones too.
Ignoring time’s mandates you
ripped my heart straight from my chest
with bare hands
(living)
(pulsing)
(messy)
and laid it on the table next to yours.
I’m still not sure how to put it back,
so I’ll carry it around with both hands
until you’re there to examine it again.
And I’ll spend all the time apart wondering
why it feels better
outside of my ribcage.

you will know she is a poetess
if she likes to wear long-sleeves
long-sleeves that hide the scars
long-sleeves that hold her bruised arms together
long-sleeves with a slit near the shoulder
where she tried to wear her heart
(but poured it out in ink instead)

she will have long hair
or walk like she does
because hair is memory
cutting it is like erasing yesterday's you
restyling it is like recreating you.
her hair will have leaves in it
and leftover twine
from the flower crown she wears
or if she is the daring kind
her hair will have silverdust
(proof of how close her words
got her to the moon)

if she smiles and laughs
and never shows pain
she is a poetess
because a poetess writes her hurt down
in free verses and half-finished sonnets
and she cries not on a boy's shoulder
but on paper where her tears are caught by
the swooping syllables and dauntless denotations
making her words come alive
(because where there is water, there is life)

if you meet a person and assume she is a poetess
check first her palms
(if she will show them to you)
they must show no sign of ink
(for a poetess is sometimes secretive)
no, you must be able to trace the constellations
along the creases of her palm
smell the rocket smoke
and see the nebulae dotting her flesh
where she managed to catch stars.
congratulate her
and maybe, she will lift the hem
of her long pearl blue skirt
and show you the wings on her ankles
and if you're lucky, she will tell you story
upon story
upon story.

if you are able to tell a poetess from a person
and you find her,
keep her.
keep her close to where
the drums of your soul beat from
keep her next to your dreams of sailing and pink seas
keep her in the mental list you keep
of people you will never, ever leave
(and she will keep you, too)

when she dies,
wrap her body in a white Ilocos blanket.
use no coffin.
let the earth swallow her up
(but don't let it swallow her words)
tend to the fire she left you
plan to set out on a quest
to look
for other word-weavers
because it is impossible to live without
these storytellers
then go back to her writing desk
touch the last thing she held
and look for a hole
a false drawer
a hidden key
anything that keeps.
and i promise you,
you will find
more poems.
and if you spread each page out on the floor
its letters will rearrange
and form your name
and point you to a poem hidden
in a pocket she sewed inside her coat
and the first line will read,


"how to tell if she is a poetess"

the rural sighs
measured pleas and
thirsty eyes
urban arches
double crossed sevens
number 13 marches
i'll wait for you there
until time freezes itself
inside a snapshot
of its own
genesis

i looked out the window
and saw

a cow.