this world as a fold

teach me how to fold origami, fold this paper
piece the way slender fingers do

they are graceful as a woman's,
as precise

as her heart the way it holds the brim of a world
into a cup of her hand.

A Kind of Burning

A Kind of Burning



it is perhaps because
one way or the other
we keep this distance
closeness will tug us apart
in many directions
in absolute din
how we love the same
trivial pursuits and
insignificant gewgaws
spoken or inert
claw at the same straws
pore over the same jigsaws
trying to make heads or tails
you take the edges
i take the center
keeping fancy guard
loving beyond what is there
you sling at the stars
i bedecked the weeds
straining in song or
profanities towards some
fabled meeting apart
from what dreams read
and suns dismantle
we have been all hapless
lovers in this wayward world
in almost all kinds of ways
except we never really meet
but for this kind of burning.








by Ophelia Dimalanta