Blueprint

[Baguio City]



Among the roses in the park,
          Daniel's bust on a small pedestal:

in afternoon light, there's no
         mistaking such a face for any  

of "the natives"—the ones who cut
         the grass and sweep up litter

left by tourists around the man-
         made lake.  I thought first we would take

only Manila; then Luzon; then other 
         islands, perhaps, also—said William 
 
McKinley, pacing back and forth
         in the White House at midnight. 

And so the architecture of this next
         colonial state was born. On a map,

though we might no longer be that 
         place carved out for others' occupancy, 

every road snakes into the hills, bent
        on delivering the old missions.