RAUL G. MOLDEZ
Are buildings without roofs
or house skeletons, shocking
than dry skulls and bones
piled up at the foot of the giant cross
of the town’s public cemetery.
are bodies lifeless like statues,
being lined up by retrievers
on muddy streets
as if the dead can talk
to identify themselves.
are shattered gates,
broken padlocks. Fences collapsed,
revealing bamboo slats used
in lieu of standard steel bars.
are trees bending, leaves gone
banana trunks laying flat on earth
shoots coming out of bamboo
buds by the river bank and lives
slowly rising up from fragments
of crumpled GI sheets, powderized
hollow blocks and pavements.
* * *
Watching grandma at ICU
I know you didn’t see me
when I enter the room, sterile
yet smells of medicines.
Sitting beside your bed,
I caress your hair,
murmuring words,
actually a prayer.
Your eyes closed.
Nose busy breathing
through a small tube
that links to a tank
nearby. Sometimes,
your hands move. Perhaps
the only way you know
of welcoming me this time.
Just above your head,
a screen monitoring
your heartbeat, a line
actively zigzagging
within its limit.
Until it folds itself flat,
announcing an annoying
news. I look outside
through the glass window
and feel a certain void in me
upon seeing a Mahogany leaf
falling from a branch
without saying
words of goodbye.