On a bed of grass,
I swallow this scene:
The sky is an ocean.
The clouds, sailing across
the canvas. I drown its white
spaces in shades of blue.
You called it skygazing,
a word that rolls on my tongue
like candy with a sour aftertaste.
I lift the canvas to the heavens
and watch it lodge
perfectly into place.
Then the scene changes:
The sun starts to retreat,
hours turn to minutes
turn to seconds turn to
an oil spill across the horizon,
fishes shimmering in moonlight.
I sink my brush again
and begin to repaint history.
My hands, cold in your absence.
My eyes follow the colors
rowing back and forth,
a lullaby calming the tides.
That night,
I look up once more
and echo your name,
hoping that the waves in the sky
would carry my voice
back to your shores.
Raphael Salise is a Creative Writing graduate from the University of the Philippines Mindanao. He likes to read poems, short stories, and essays by Filipino writers as he someday aspires to become successful like them. Raph is currently taking up Law at Ateneo de Davao University.