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I close my eyes like a good little boy at night in bed, as I was told to do by my mother when she lived, and before bed I brush my teeth and slip on my pajamas, as I was told, and look forward to tomorrow. I do all things required of me to make me a citizen of sterling worth. I keep a job and come home each evening for dinner. I arrive at the same time on the same train to give my family a sense of order. I obey traffic signals. I am cordial to strangers, I answer my mail promptly. I keep a balanced checking account. Why can’t I live forever?

I could not tell I had jumped off that bus, that bus in motion, with my child in my arms, because I did not know it. I believed my own story: I had fallen, or the bus had started up when I had one foot in the air. I would not remember the tightening of my jaw, the irk that I’d missed my stop, the step out into the air, the clear child gazing about her in the air as I plunged to one knee on the street, scraped it, twisted it, the bus skidding to a stop, the driver jumping out, my daughter laughing Do it again. I have never done it again, I have been very careful. I have kept an eye on that nice young mother who lightly leapt off the moving vehicle onto the stopped street, her life in her hands, her life’s life in her hands.

When my wife was breaking apart, my son was falling in love. She lay on the couch with a heated sack of rice on her belly, sometimes dozing, sometimes staring out the window at the olive tree as it broke into tiny white blossoms, as it swelled into bitter black fruit. At first, I wanted to spare him. I wished he was still farming up north, tucking bulbs of green onions into their beds and watering the lettuce, his hands gritty, his head haloed in a straw hat. But as the months deepened, I grew selfish. I wanted him here with his new love. When I passed the open bathroom door, I wanted to see them brushing their teeth, one perched on the toilet lid, one on the side of the tub, laughing and talking through their foamy mouths, toothbrushes rattling against their teeth. Like sage gives its scent when you crush it. Like stone is hard. They were happy and I could touch it.

The seats faced backwards although the train car was headed forward. The engineers designed it that way intentionally: the cushioned seats at the front facing in toward the rest of the car,—passengers’ faces, a Japanese flower arrangement of faces. The platform began receding. Whoosh. Not in the sense of being unconscious or knocked out, but I was coming to see, that is, to understand an endurance test deep inside that things could have gone differently, the furniture. It could have turned out completely different. That’s within the realm of possibilities, as if the election were in our favor somewhere else, in the United States of Atlantis.— I left off just as I was going to make a mental note in that regard, that we were carried along, passively, in motion without walking or running, spastic reflex in the legs —To sit down in one city, stay seated an hour and a half, and then stand up in a small town Milton Bradley must have modeled its tiny green Monopoly houses and red hotels after

I cry your mercy—pity—love!—aye, love! Merciful love that tantalizes not, One-thoughted, never-wandering, guileless love, Unmasked, and being seen—without a blot! O! let me have thee whole,—all—all—be mine! That shape, that fairness, that sweet minor zest Of love, your kiss,—those hands, those eyes divine, That warm, white, lucent, million-pleasured breast, Yourself—your soul—in pity give me all, Withhold no atom’s atom or I die Or living on perhaps, your wretched thrall, Forget, in the mist of idle misery, Life’s purposes,—the palate of my mind Losing its gust, and my ambition blind!

A compendium of words was stored here Just underneath the chimney I’d like to see it that way Fortune won’t stand still for that And pressure of the air flattens paper I’d like to see it that way One comes into the room groomed, a pleasure There’s a patch of glitter in the glamor I’d like to see it that way Each moment opens up sudden as an umbrella On a day storms gather like wool A way I’d really like to see it So you can’t assume a face again Before the non-face puts in its appearance Nor can you push at the door expecting satisfaction on the other side I’d like to see it that way Many’s the time and time for reflection Truer than truth the subject’s interconnections I’d like to see it that way I was born on a day absolutely unique in world history Birds grasp their path in air I’d like to see it that way It’s standard to pack half a dozen at a clip Imagine the red thing yours alone at last I’d like to see it that way The image almost takes shape superimposed As a mist on top of ordinary daily objects I’d like to see it that way Life goes on forever like a dusty road Down which we peer as we drink a glass of water I’d like to see it that way We return again and again born into wombs The shape of inverted ice cream cones I’d like to see it that way So I could relax, put on my enormous suit And ring your doorbell holding my breath and flowers I’d like to see it that way In order to be able to end war but Would war ever end or would my wanting To end it ever end if nothing ever ended I’d like to see it that way Everything is standing up and falling down again Constantly like hair in wind I’d like to see it that way For the good of the nation behind bars For my own good bundled up into piles I’d like to see it that way I blow continuously on this thing the landscape Crumples around me like a felt hat I’d like to see it that way But the problem is I put out my hand And only clutch air wanting to understand I’d like to see it some way Any way so long as I could know it was there And could pull back the covers at will To reveal my heart’s desire and measure it I’d like to see it that way

The moon is my alibi. My tenders throw hissy fits. My scalp’s at the foot of the precipice. My lume is spento, there’s a creep in my cellar. You can stand under my umbrella, Ella. Who put pubic hair on my headphones? Who put the ram in Ramallah? I’m just sitting here spinning my spinning wheels— where are the snow tires of tomorrow? The llama is burning! My heart is an ovary! Let’s chase dawn’s tail across state lines, sing “Crimson and Clover” over and overy, till wonders are taken for road signs. My fish, fast and loose, shoot fish in a kettle. The boys like the girls who like heavy metal. On Sabbath, on Slayer, on Maiden and Venom, on Motörhead, Leppard, and Zeppelin, and Mayhem . . .

“I do not know English” —from “I Do Not” by Michael Palmer “Marunong akong mag-ingles” (I do know English) —any 21st-century Filipino poet I do know English. I do know English for I have something to say about this latest peace stirring between a crack that’s split a sidewalk traversing a dusty border melting at noon beneath an impassive sun. I do know English and, therefore, when hungry, can ask for more than minimum wage, pointing repeatedly at my mouth and yours. Such a gesture can only mean what it means: I do not want to remain hungry and I am looking at your mouth. I do know English and still will not ask permission. I shall call you “Master” with a lack of irony; lift my cotton blouse; cup my breasts to offer them to your eyes, your lips, your tongue; keen at the moon hiding at 11 a.m. to surface left tendon on my neck. For your teeth. And so on. No need to decipher your response—and if you wish, go ahead: spank me. I do know English. Therefore I can explain this painting of a fractured grid as the persistent flux of our “selves” as time unfolds. There is a way to speak of our past or hopes for the future, the hot-air balloon woven from a rainbow’s fragments now floating over St. Helena; your glasses I nearly broke when, afterwards, you flung me to the floor as violence is extreme and we demand the extreme from each other; your three moans in a San Francisco hallway after I fell to my knees; your silence in New York as I knocked on your door. There is a way to articulate your silence—a limousine running over a child on the streets of Manila and Shanghai. And Dubai. There is a way to joke about full-haired actors running for President and the birth of a new American portrait: “Tight as a Florida election.” I do know English and so cannot comprehend why you write me no letters even as you unfailingly read mine. Those where I write of the existence of a parallel universe to create a haven when your silence persists in this world I was forced to inherit. Which does not mean I cannot differentiate between a reflection and a shadow, a threnody and a hiccup, the untrimmed bougainvillea bush mimicking a fire and the lawn lit by a burning cross. I can prove Love exists by measuring increased blood flow to the brain’s anterior cingulated cortex, the middle insula, the putamen and the caudate nucleus. Nor is “putamen” a pasta unless I confirm to you that my weak eyesight misread “puttanesca” as the crimson moon began to rise, paling as it ascends for fate often exacts a price. I can see an almond eye peer behind the fracture on a screen and know it is not you from the wafting scent of crushed encomiums. I can remind you of the rose petals I mailed to you after releasing them from the padded cell between my thighs. I slipped the petals inside a cream envelope embossed in gold with the seal of a midtown Manhattan hotel whose façade resembles a seven-layered wedding cake. Which we shall share only through the happiness of others. Which does not cancel Hope. I can recite all of your poems as I memorized them through concept as well as sound. I speak of a country disappearing and the impossibility of its replacement except within the tobacco-scented clench of your embrace. I can tell you I am weary of games, though they continue. Manila’s streets are suffused with protesters clamoring for an adulterer’s impeachment. Their t-shirts are white to symbolize their demand for “purity.” Space contains all forms, which means it lack geometry. My lucid tongue has tasted the dust from monuments crumbling simply because seasons change. Because I do know English, I have been variously called Miss Slanted Vagina, The Mail Order Bride, The One With The Shoe Fetish, The Squat Brunette Who Wears A Plaid Blazer Over A Polka-Dot Blouse, The Maid. When I hear someone declare war while observing a yacht race in San Diego, I understand how “currency” becomes “debased.” They have named it The Tension Between The Popular Vote And The Electoral College. I do know English.

I expected something up out of the water not the shadow in the wave that rose to fill the wave then splash a breath off the abutting air      then disappear. I didn't see any of this         only the dark wave.         Even the size of a whale I don't see        what I look directly at. I didn't see the pronghorn antelope, speed they pointed out equal our car's, but never having seen distance so large I couldn't pin in it      point to antler and saw in parallax instead       the world entire a still brown arc of leap      so like a first look at the milky way       each stone a star I saw but could not see. I didn't see the Nazca earth drawings looking at a line like a path      the vision on it   my not looking up. & trying to see from on the ground looking from a plane thousands of feet above maybe I saw only what the unenlightened marking out the lines could see from there because I never saw the figures until shown from books. I've told folk half the truth      that I was there I was but embarrassed      never told      I missed my chance until I saw:       without embarrassment this country miss its chance   looking at color and not see what it looked directly at, without embarrassment act      and not see that done on its own hands      not see its own bright blood.

I don’t buy it, says the scientist. Replies the frail and faithful heart, it’s not for sale.