“The city never sleeps: the isle of faces illuminated by cell phones/is proof its waking isn’t rising, only beeping, only static,/only the cashier in the convenience store, only flickering.”
I.
It should be enough to see the headlights of a car from your periphery,
bathing your edges with a glow this sidewalk lacks at a time most needed.
There is still for hope another to pass after the last heads away, if only if wasn’t
slower than usual, too in sync with your strut, too close that
the light starts to scorch your left arm, then graze it for a few seconds.
Too close before it burns a hole through your sleeve.
II.
Turn a corner to a promise of the sun made up of taxes.
Grope in a way most familiar to you and reach for a flicker.
No matter how soft urine can whisper; you hear only a shout.
Climb the staircase to a footbridge glaring in the dark
thick enough to swallow the gaps between each step.
Between the hem of your dress and how long it falls,
there is only one joke you can understand in retreat.
III.
Go where people sing and challenge its choir to a debate
about who can see the most amid the squinting of eyes
and whether or not The Man needs any of this more than me.
IV.
The city never sleeps: the isle of faces illuminated by cell phones
is proof its waking isn’t rising, only beeping, only static,
only the cashier in the convenience store, only flickering.
Since when was kilowatt a metric of worth? Since when
could the morning wilt the burden in your name? Since when
did the window open? Since when did sun rise from the mouth
of another woman, this odd shape of an invitation?.
Aki Dueñas is from Manila, Philippines. She earned her undergraduate degree in language and literature studies at Far Eastern University, where she was awarded Best Creative Thesis for her poetry collection titled God and Other Excuses. Her work has appeared in Katitikan: Literary Journal of the Philippine South.
