 |
 |
 |
 |
| ANGELO V. SUAREZ |
| everyw(her)e |
| THE AUTHOR HOLDS THE COPYRIGHT TO THIS POEM. THIS IS POSTED WITH PERMISSION FROM THE TRANSLATOR. |
| THIS IS PART OF THE LITERATURA READING SERIES | CLICK HERE TO GO BACK TO LITERATURA |
| partly it’s because she reminds you
of an old lover, the way she stares blankly into space, chin up & eyes in stasis as if searching for a lost molecule of air, a missing memory, a misplaced scene in the vault of her head that keeps playing itself in the cycle of a dream. but you just can’t help but look at her, reminding yourself she is a different woman she is a different woman she is a different woman… and how different she is, really-- this you can tell by her height alone, the length of her hair, how her back arches like the body of bamboo. but does it even matter now? you close your eyes & imagine your old lover sprawled on the sofa, looking as if she fell from the sky, sleeping--and how long has it been? when was the last time you watched her sleep? when was the last time she held you? you open your eyes but the image doesn’t change: your old lover, still lost in a dream. you rush to the restroom to wash your face and look at yourself in the mirror. it’s just stress, you whisper to no one-- but it isn’t. it’s not even your face. you touch your brow but the fingers you raise are hers. the air you breathe passes through her mouth, her nostrils. it’s her hair you comb with her own two hands-- and you close your eyes again, conjuring yourself on a street where all the passersby are her. the boy riding a bike is her. the man with the messy mustache is her. she is the woman vending icons, the manang on her way to church, the bus conductor shouting ayala! ayala! she is every person you have shaken hands with, every streetchild you’ve ignored, as now she is the woman whose back arches like the body of bamboo, eyes in stasis, chin up & cheeks of saxophone tones, she whose face you taste each time you press a grape into your mouth, whose eyes your eyes have never met but always known to be true, whose waist and weight are yggdrasil brahman the unbroken totality of the universe-- and instantly you want her, knowing well enough there isn’t any difference really: that she is you and you are her as both of you are everyone else, waiting only to love yourselves because there is no one else to love. This poem is part of the collection that won Third Prize for Poetry in the 2004 Palanca Awards |