The Idea
for Sid Hildawa

You?d think we?d gotten used to it
by now since all we ever seem to do
is turn breath and blood into memory.
But we always want what is not
or was once there or ought to;
slap-sting-smack moments that blast
our hearts and make time of
our hunger, even after the realization
of oh, shit, we?ve been here before,
why are we still shaking?
How to stand still, how to breathe
and bleed for our own firing
squad: this is, was, the idea,
the slaughter we?re not meant for.
-R. Zamora Linmark

Someplace Unchanging

Still we are talking about impermanence.
My high school teacher died this morning
and suddenly I remember which corridors
still hold our voices, some passing conversation
about economics and its place. In a dream,
you sat beside me and pointed at a moon
shrinking inside some girl's belly. I learned
she was from the other class who always left
blanks on questions like What is love or Who
is your crush or If you were stranded on a desert
would you really bring anyone? She was gone
the moment I blinked. The bus was also gone.
And we were in a garden. Wings of dragonflies
humming secrets about small spaces. About you,
and your palm folded in mine. I tell you, I wish
we were in a poem. Someplace unchanging.
You smile and I wake, trying to remember
your name or were you ever my classmate?
I may have just met you in a waiting room
at a hospital. You may have asked me to pass
a year-old magazine, told me you were scared.
-Jan Brandon Dollente