Photo credit: Doux Glace
Jamais Vu
By Pia Fajelagutan
Your home is still here,
cradling warm names
with cold faces-
Like a mother’s kiss
that sits for days
on strangers’ eyes
riddled with bewilderment
The continents we seek seem
other-worldly
Photo credit: Karim Monsieur
33
By Pia Fajelagutan
From within her rib cages
sprouted a mound of
wishbones
(galvanized by miracles that’ve died
in
daydreams)
instead of a spine
& when the storm
christened her
it pulled on the forks
and left with the bigger halves.
Photo credit: Aziz Acharki
Chelyabinsk
By Pia Fajelagutan
Like a watcher
of the skies
when a new planet
swims into his ken;
my soul froze
enraptured under the cold indigo
only, you were a missile –
ineradicable, hard, unwelcome
and my chest reaped
crater after crater
unmindful of your brisance
sharp-feathered light
spiraling inward
wrought-iron warhead
brewing dust storms –
the dark is melting
into streaks of fiery illuminations
Destruction:
Mutually-assured