Candles at lunch

over grilled fish and
steamed rice, we tell
stories of last night

of disconnected phone
lines, lost payment checks,
service outages, missing
bills

we laugh at our own
stories and perhaps
at ourselves

i trace my fingers on the side
of the sweating pitcher of cold
lime juice, while i smile

then you remember
something, leave the table,
returning
with a couple of small red
candles, you light them

from the corner of my mouth,
you pluck a grain of rice and
i taste it as it touches your own lips

the smell
of scented
wax at noon
we kiss

Sustenance

he has fed you
with poems
you do not understand

but you shall still savor
his lines, drink his
metaphors

for it means, that though
you are at times hungry,
you have still his poems

Theory of Relativity

She is all of a sudden under the water, her feet trying to touch the sea floor. She should not have gone too far. Could he see her arms flailing helplessly above the water?

She thinks of how long it may take him to save her before the sea murders her, how long she could hold her breath and stay afloat. Then she feels an arm wrap itself around her waist: familiar, muscled arms.

She would regain consciousness minutes later, would thank him. He would look sorry, painfully sad, with a tinge of guilt she would not understand until years later when they are married already.

They would be on top of a mountain cliff, after a day's climb. She would notice how the clear blue sky looked like the sea, how it looks like it is about to pour over everything, anyone.

He would be reaching for a wild flower at the rocky lip of the cliff when he would fall over.

She would be able to pull him over safely, but when she would look at his eyes as she asks him if he's okay, she would finally understand the honest guilt etched on his face now.

For at that crucial instant between the moment he would lose his balance and fall over and the split-second when his fingers would barely grab the edge of the cliff, she would toy with the idea of his simple death, would already start mourning.

She would ask him if he's okay and their eyes would meet, the air around them rife with discovery of common experience. Such a curious thing, time and space. ▪

[275 words]