the car outside. you in your plain clothes;
I solemnize over this slow hill of flesh
when you lay down after the dredge.

it was your old automobile. somewhere in the
console, piping in the shell of night, your once
swift-footed self.

it was for Mico, you said.

this thing of time that was once early.
you in your white shirt with blotches of
yellow, like some aureole-bitten lip of bougainvillea.

some cold smitten flitter peering out
of the window of your gray head, your sage,
prattling about its conscious footing, this automobile.

are we but disputes and all that sense,
eluding us? somewhere in Malolos, the fatigued
machinery with its lilting rotor

modulates a once wild memory:
you, still in your white shirt. two bodies
drained of inertia – otherwise occupying song and silence,

our volition nothing but jarring (unmindful of its scathing dialect),
our terms to ourselves fabulated, the savannah drunk
in dappled light that evening – in front of the hospital,
mum as a nurse.

you pass on the keys to him,
learning new language. by the thousand strophes
of this lurching sea with its plodding delay,

your once bright bone, quickening in slow delight
now, as his face obscures yours with wonderment,
this evening – both of you in your denims,
   all three of us in a huddle stamped
  with heavy understanding.