BARBARA JANE REYES

UNREMEMBERED / GALLEON PRAYER / SINGKIL

UNREMEMBERED
Upon hearing of the death of a poet I never knew

in moments of poets’ darkness, who knows
the inescapable solitude of seeing what is
unfathomed, what only poets take care
to compose. a mother’s face, a mosaic
of glass shards; a beloved child, an only

treasure; loving a man for his impossibility;
rekindling our fear for boxes. in between,
where we reside, there are never enough
words, and never enough places for words;
they insist still upon overtaking us,

but never wanting to know what ice
is in our veins. consulting dictionaries,
bibles, never quite tenuous enough
to pronounce that softness. their
simultaneous insouciance and love

infuriate us, force us to crawl inside
ourselves. we create false faces, hoping
one day these might inhabit us,
erase our own of mourning traces.
no leafless branch nor autumn could

evoke our nostalgia, only sadden
us for what is unremembered:
in moments of restlessness and fervor,
a continent ringed with salt and bliss, edged
with fennel seed, rose petals, silverleaf.

[reverse]

GALLEON PRAYER
Petatlán to Pilipinas

she whispers desert trees, thorn-ridged, trickling yellow candles; roots spilling snakes’ blood

virgin of ribboned silk; virgin of gold filigree

one day’s walk westward, a crucifix of fisherman’s dinghy dimensions washes ashore

virgin adorned in robe of shark embryo and coconut husk

she fingers mollusks, wraps herself in sea vines

virgin of ocean voyage peril

she wills herself born

virgin of mud brick ruins; virgin of sandstorm echoes

she is saint of commonplaces; saint of badlands

virgin of jade, camphor, porcelain; virgin of barter for ghosts

penitents, earthdivers of forgotten names praying skyward

virgin of scars blossomed from open veins of fire

she slips across the pacific’s rivers of pearldiving children

virgin of copper coins

she is bloodletting words, painting unlikeness

virgin of anachronism

children stained with berries and rust, their skeletons bend, arrow-tipped; smoke blurs eyes’ edges

virgin of mineral depletion; virgin of mercury

at other altitudes she remembers to breathe; a monument scraping cloud

virgin of tin deposits extracted from mountains

these are not divinations; there is goldleaf about her skin

virgin of naming and renaming places in between

[reverse]

SINGKIL

lost
her eyeglasses
in east village

while
dancing singkil
in the rain;

drugstore
umbrella her
leather clad pinay

homegirl
held between
silver manicured fingertips.

royal
blood fables,
suburban goth girl

princess
with stars,
raindrops for eyes.

she
thought herself
on pilgrimage, memorizing

mantras
for simultaneous
cause and effect

while
black messiahs
outstretched blueblack arms

in
eucalyptus groves,
wailing prayers for

those
who die
before morning comes.

scarred
faces, lines
of sinew, tendon

shiver.
yes, poets
dream their marrow

resonates
song, disentangling
lust and desire.

once,
a man
wept for her,

proclaiming
another word
for love: rapture.

between
cigarette puffs
and kamikaze shots,

he
touched her
thighs. he couldn’t

do
anything else.
his eyes, galaxies;

he
swore he
would find her

if
she could
ever find herself

prowling
the edges
of the east —

life
on this
continent’s side crawls;

she
ascends. he would
take her, she

would
allow this —
devastation’s synonym: beauty.

between
breaths, autumn
burns sunrise. he

whispers,
“make me
love you more.”

leather
clad umbrella
homegirl swirls myth

into
poetry, and
wordless, she waits.

[reverse]