When I think about it

Sometimes
I want you
to forget
So I’d have
a reason
to hate you

Para sa iyo

Valentine
Carol Ann Duffy

Not a red rose or a satin heart.

I give you an onion.
It is a moon wrapped in brown paper.
It promises light
like the careful undressing of love.

Here.
It will blind you with tears
like a lover.
It will make your reflection
a wobbling photo of grief.

I am trying to be truthful.

Not a cute card or a kissogram.

I give you an onion.
Its fierce kiss will stay on your lips,
possessive and faithful
as we are,
for as long as we are.

Take it.
Its platinum loops shrink to a wedding-ring,
if you like.

Lethal.
Its scent will cling to your fingers,
cling to your knife.

I miss you

I have spent
too many nights with
to suddenly be
without

Jewel Kilcher

You fit into me

You fit into me
like a hook into an eye

A fish hook
An open eye

Margaret Atwood

First Person Demonstrative

I ‘d rather
heave half a brick than say
I love you, though I do
I’d rather
crawl in a hole than call you
darling, though you are
I’d rather
wrench off an arm than hug you though
it’s what I long to do
I’d rather
gather a posy of poison ivy than
ask if you love me

so if my
hair doesn’t stand on end it’s because
I never tease it
and if my
heart isn’t in my mouth it’s because
it knows its place
and if I
don’t take a bite of your ear it’s because
gristle gripes my guts
and if you
miss the message better get new
glasses and read it twice

Phyllis Gotlieb

In memoriam

Testimony

The territory of shadows is a petal,
An organic wish, a solidified thought,
An awareness of wind catching fishes,
A gratitude for getting rid of clothes.

With the kind gesture of an evening: low tide and safe,
I am sharing the water with the Hundred Islands.
Floating on the galaxies’ reflection,
I float as night sky carves down an embrace,
an elusive feeling of eternity and floating,
a gesture of wind and a bath of moonlight
from the sea bottom. I am the salt in the evening.
I am the celebration of beginnings.
I, finally getting rid of my clothes.
I, weightless, without knowing what.
Between the sky and me is the wind.

There is an ageless consciousness of being a woman.
There is a shapeless idea of being in the water.
There is a testimony of the sky and the earth.
There is no longer the terrestrial truth,
I am no longer a victim of war.

- Maningning C. Miclat

Because sometimes there really isn’t anything else you can do

HOW TO HOLD ON TO IT
by Michael Leunig

Hold on to it like
you hold a day old
chicken.

Hold on to it like
you hold a live fish.

Hold on to it like you
hold a horse.

Hold on to it like you
hold a bowl of soup.

Hold on to it like you
hold a door open for
the queen mother.

Letting go of it is
just as difficult and
shall be dealt with
at some later stage.