it was like waking up to all white fume
or a long washline — masturbatory, feeling something stiff like a hand gliding
over a monsoon of emotions, the affect
   jazz and the crunch of fragrance
forever like sandalwood;

on my way to Dumandan, i conjure an inward miasma of thrill, unfurled yesterday, today, or was it before when our eyes were fixated on the passing of things in myriad ways without any relevance to what has died, say wilted,

like a flower going away in closing seasons,
children in hurtling speeds at twilight,
gates welcoming a resounding sound of
rusting hinges,
slow rise of night, its vertical climb,
  shadows collapsing on the Hibiscus
and the Poinsettia from the Cordillera,

   dreary men taking out *******, throwing
them into metalloid beasts, verdigris
   painted, grisly caravan of steel and
      worthless scraps —

past neighborhoods thinking about
the simmer of onion and the hustle of
the feral over rooftops, clinking wine bottles undulating full to empty — both
unaware of acumen and only dizzying
ourselves mirroring each other eye
  to eye and bridging this unclose-enough
    a gap in between,

    because you need it,
    and i want it, or simply in reverse,
a sidewinding thought through dunes
    of afterthought.

   because you have to walk my side
    of the Earth and I have to meet you
somewhere halfway where we can both
   lounge at each other's steady presence
while the flyblown dry air ravishes
      the piquant morning, all-telling what
this distance meant from its
                peak up to the very last
   traceable steps where i found you
      and you found me, trilling in the neighborhood like how void
    stills itself into all the mood of the     Earth:

    all moony and
                 fretting in the disquiet.

Picture me this: not the arched brow
  but the body when night, curves like a moon
  accruing more weight.

Develop me this: not the body when curved like a moon
    but the white stucco of it,
    assuming its form.

Fold me like this: not the white stucco of it,
   but the space it takes for need,
   the occupancy it wastes for want.
     In this manner is how you will

And lay me flat against the river:
   not your memory of walls with fleur-de-lis,
   but with lilies. If this day were leaf when turned
   from the night when I took this collapse,
        let your hands be pedicle. My inflorescence you have
   mistaken as displacement yet not drown – meet this canopy

  at the end of this river that is your river – your static grace that
  is the music of your passing.

When met, disintegrate: not the lilies – they are anchors you have forgotten,
     not this day if it were a leaf, but the day dried from a washline
   of clouds. Let my inflorescence be a blunder of your recall.
         When you meet this canopy, pack all of its mileage,
               exact it in this distance. Take photographs of. Do not keep.