--

Everything, a metaphor

you don’t believe. When I tell you the days

are sun-baked hills until you came along, you refuse

to drop again, precipitation-wise. When I say

I am a desolate gasoline station in the middle

of nowhere, you inquire about the true-to-life possibility

of cab drivers sipping coffee in a roadside eatery,

downing bowls of hot arroz caldo, comparing stories

about the time when rain didn’t stop for weeks

and floodwater was a putrid blanket

that covered the cold city from head to leanest side street.

It is raining now.

We are in an abandoned gas station.

Do you feel the tug between symbols and the vanishing

pavement? The fence swathed in vine and the surrender. This body

      and the endless shivering.