BAGUIO, THE RETURN

Cold
I whisper to the wind
as I fold myself
like a fan.
I have no one to hold:
No fingers fusing
like candles melting
in the dark.

In Burnham Park
I walk
with nobody to talk to
but myself.
Shadows
of my own making
stalk me in silence,
repeating everything
I do.

Is it your absence
I seek
among the pines?
Or the reek
of your presence
like the needles
pin-pricking my senses
with their scent?

Are you heaven-sent,
an angel invisible
but omnipresent?
Or the devil
come to torture my soul
with the mist,
like dragon’s breath
that shrouds
Baguio with myths?

- Ralph Semino Galán

summer heat. desire. flesh. what can we, mere mortals do?

“the night was so parched
and so were we
with skin and moan
and juices of love divine.
we made love when the day
was to end, when rain was away.”