“A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more.” ~ Matthew 2: 18

Bolo de rey, roscón, gâteau des Rois: what it is,
beneath the yeasty braid and its thick seal of sugar

in tie-dye colors (swirls of purple, golden yellow, green
sugar sprinkles), is that one wish buried in the bread:

not the plastic or resin molded baby, not even the truth
that three men from the east rode into the darkened world

to find because the signs, day after day more impossible
to deny— fish growing two heads in oily waters, birds

denouncing the light that crowns each season differently,
all nature out of kilter— were pointing toward coming

change. Who would not wish for understanding? At the very least,
some language to assuage those who’ve cried and shred

their sorrows’ garments, gathering up their slaughtered
children in their arms? In Tintoretto’s Massacre of Innocents,

the frenzied bodies writhe beneath the rust-red capes of soldiers.
In Giotto, the surfaces are flatter, the colors more matte, the dead

already dead, like a carpet underfoot, indifferent to the bickering
and power play. Whatever star may have flickered, celestial

as some beacon of peace, has melted: run into the pavement’s cracks,
syrupy as blood gritty with residues of salt. And why think of kings

and cakes, of prophecies gone stale? What will you do
if your mouth closes around the trinket glazed with sugar?

The baker punched the dough and pulled it into a ring, but yeast
was thrown into the milk hours ago. All rise, and rise together.

Carnival, Mardi Gras, Shrove Tuesday: sack cloth, ashes, penitence,
confession upon the heels of what we could not bear to see: epiphany.

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

“Give orders
to give orders.”
~ D. Bonta

Again, too soon, news of hard mourning:
bulletins of treachery and broken peace,
choppers returned from airlifting the fallen.

Do you want to view the dead
enveloped in their coffins? Hands
folded on chests, medals pinned;

grommets fastening the plackets,
holding the body’s riddled remains
in place. In place: which is to say,

jurisdiction has been ceded to another.
Kiangan, Kodiamat, Kayob, Dulnuan, Cayang-o—
look through the glass at their name plates;

mutilated beyond recognition, bodies and faces
now entered in the pantheon of the state. O widow,
o fiancee draped across the casket like a flag,

perhaps there is some other ritual that could
quell this flood of grief, but not here, not yet.
Renditions of loyalty unto death in every pledge—

Seek, Rescue, Save (Maghanap, Sumagip, Magligtas): motto pinned
to their dark berets. And on each badge: flourish of wings
unfurled, flanking a hard-edged blade. Tell, tell anyway:

versions of truth to the state’s machine, to
wage a war against its indifference. Each death
exacts a higher price, a bloodier coin, each time;

you’ll never fathom the cost of sacrifice.
Zero: the score for peace the powerful never really want.

In response to Via Negativa: Statecraft.

always comes later— always lies
beneath detritus or the skin of matter;
dead leaves, the fecal, the stuff composted
and left behind when the sweet new rice
or corn was gathered beneath the moon.
Those first white pearls, those little
milky teeth that brown backs bent
to husk and skim: in burlap sacks,
only their shadows trickle down to fill
the mouths that truly hunger.

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

The card you picked says
it is not a good day for a gown
edged in wedding-cake pink and flowers.
Nor is it a good day for Brazilian
body waxing, camouflage suits, or a skirmish
between police commandos and rebels
in the fields of Mindanao.

In response to Via Negativa: Royal Flush.

How could I open myself
to the string that vibrates
in the wind, and stay unperturbed
by the clamor of crows
whose cries summon the cold
and the curtain of dark
for wild drifts of snow?
Tonight, ice covers the roads
and burdens the roofs of houses
in our towns and I want to look
for any trace of tenderness: a curl
escaping from a chimney, the soapy
exhaust from a laundromat’s vents,
the small wet circles with dots
for eyes and a dash for a mouth,
drawn by a child’s gloved hand
in the back of a car slowed by traffic
on the interstate.

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

The spires only look
like they hold up the sky
under which they stand.

In response to Via Negativa: Roshi.

but it also travels: I see its traces
far from the hills where I was raised,

fitful light brooding over a horizon
that still has the look of a citadel,
or a rampart whose solitude is never

to be scaled. I feel its fingers
grope the edges of my night-shirt
so in my sleep I pant and sweat

like a horse heaving through fog-
threaded trails, its nose pressed
toward the rumor of heat or fire.

And in the misleading calm of daytime,
I hear its ongoing recitations: gold-
laced, a psalm on the lips of bees.

Those were the days when we could barter things
for goods we only dreamed about and glimpsed

sometimes at the black market— a bottle
of genuine Chivas Regal for a child’s

Fisher-Price nursery rhyme music box,
gold pocket watch or pair of earrings

for a set of down pillows; a crystal
punch bowl for a pair of tennis shoes,

a box of vintage prints for a block
of American cheese— I wonder what

quality of exchange would make for happiness,
now that we have landed on the moon.

In response to Via Negativa: Bequest.

Every day the light stays
a little longer, and night
does not fall so hard, so fast.
By the upstairs window where the blinds
are open, I can read till nearly suppertime:
I sought in my heart to give you

the ivory letters that say “siempre,”
“siempre,” “siempre:” garden of my agony—
But oh Federico, isn’t the exile’s heart
always a ferment of agony, always in search
of the elusive body or the heat of another clime?
Here, how quiet it is on our street: the men

who clip the grass and trim the hedges
will not return until winter is over,
and dogs do not roam the streets but howl
in the muffled recesses of living rooms
behind locked doors. Should I hear chimes
from bell towers, their music is mere

adornment to the day. Pigeons and gulls
inspect the trash bins in the alleyway.
Startled, they’ll flee— swath of their wings
the color of indeterminacy. Pine needles mark
sidewalks with their thin virgules, some strands
in puddles left after the last hard rain.

In response to Via Negativa: Night shift.