On Monday Mornings

In my slumber I felt you releasing
me from your all night long tight embrace;
I knew it was 4 o’ clock in the wee Monday
morning. Half awake I inhaled your coffee
brewing and pictured you pouring it in your
mug followed by half a spoon of sugar.

I heard you coming in; I feigned sleep.
You caressed my forehead and whispered,
“I have to go now. I can’t be late.”
I took your hand to my lips and you
burrowed into my nape. As always,
even with wanting more said,
I just mumbled, “Take care.”

When the door’s lock clicked,
I knew it was 5 o’ clock in the wee Monday
morning. I turned around because my back
has turned cold. I tried to capture in haste
with my cold hand the warmth of
the other side of the bed,
alas, it was colder.

Jeepney Everyday (Version 2)

I take a jeepney ride in going to work and coming home; and, I pay P9.00 each time. I take a jeepney ride when I go to parties or gathering with friends, meetings with colleagues, and utility companies to settle the bills; and, I pay at least P7.50. A jeepney ride may be the cheapest mode of transportation for any Taclobanon but it houses treasures of philosophical interplays and reprieves between destinations shared amongst strangers and sometimes familiar faces who at the point of convergence inside a jeepney are acquaintances by chance and necessity.

Each passenger pays his or fare without being prompted by the driver; and, the driver stops at the nearest destination advantageous to the passengers. There are times when the driver overcharges the passenger and immediately it is settled by a swift, "Mano, tikang la ako may Coca-Cola," and the former giving back to the latter the extra peso or fifty centavos. There are cases too when the driver returns extra centavos or a peso and the passenger without much ado gives them back to him and saying, "Mano, sobra im sukli." Between them come the other passengers who serve as carriers of the extra or lacking change and at the same time mediators; they side either with the driver or the concerned passenger without any bias at all and just have fair fare as their guide.

Nobody is disallowed to take the ride because of civil status, sexual orientation, color, economic status, body mass, fashion taste or whatever superficial standards. Nobody is given preference in terms of seat space; everyone is expected to pay the amount equitable to the space occupied. In fact there are even cases when the driver exercises pro bono when someone does not have enough fare or when someone gets off because he left something- all these decisions made in quick seconds. There are instances when the driver keeps on taking in more passengers in order to reach the quota seating capacity even when there is no space anymore but this is immediately rectified by simply saying, “Mano, puno na.” When there are passengers who knock on the roof to signal that they want to get off even if the next stop is a just a few meters away, the driver would say, “Unhan la kay bawal didi.”

The driver exercises expert discernment whether to take passenger in or not and the same with the passenger too as to whether to take the offered ride or not. When a passenger says, "Mano, may St. Paul's ako," the driver would say "Maliko ngadto LNU," and right there on the passenger decides whether to take or not the jeepney ride. Even when the driver fails to refuel before he started his route resulting to a stop or two at gasoline stations passengers do not complain; and, when a passenger wears a strong perfume that causes nasal congestion the other passengers do not breathe a word of irritation at all.

Inside the jeepney, everyone looks at each other without seeing each other. The jeepney is filled with silent individual thoughts. The thoughts are either at rest or occupied by the minute details of daily routines, fantasies, and even dreams of life ahead. In a jeepney, a working woman with her children hurrying for school and work is in equal state of suspension from all her points of departure and destination as much as a man who is going home from his night job as a security officer. There is that shared lull of peace where everything about life seems to stand still. The driver ensures that this is sustained by barring those who might wreck it such as a drunk or unruly prospective passenger by simply saying, "Pasensya mano."

A Sunday Not So Long Ago

This is unfinished. Unrevised.

In the kitchen, I was there.
Out in the porch, she was there.

The screened aluminum kitchen door
framed her milk laden squared shoulders
outlined by a low back spaghetti-
strapped white shirt. Her short hair was
dark chocolate on her naked nape.

In the kitchen, I drank coffee.
Out in the porch, she drank coffee.

Her arms, which used to remind me of cheese,
were of the color of toasted bread.
She once said, “It’s all because of red.”
I smirked. Her favored soda
was red and she worked for it.

In the kitchen, I boiled eggs.
Out in the porch, she busied.

I heard her broke her silence, “Oh, no! Why”
She clutched the brittle leafless rose twigs
as if they were dead babies of hers.
She stabbed the side of the pail
of invisible roots of roses.
The pail, bleached by fifteen hundreds of suns
and battered by scores of typhoons,
gave up its machine-painted children
who rode merry go round horses
and their smiles of picture perfectness.

In the kitchen, I did rice.
Out in the porch, she busied.
In the kitchen, I fried danggit.
Out in the porch, she worked hurried.

With her callused palms and naked fingers,
which she used when eating dried fishes,
she freed the roots from the dark rich earth.
She snipped rotten ones away-
Moved the roses to a pot made of clay.

Out of the kitchen to the porch
I brought plates: empty and full.
Into the kitchen from the porch
She brought dirt she had to wash off.

Out of the kitchen to the porch
was a pitcher of orange juice.
She poured a glass for me and her.
Out in the porch, we breakfasted.