e x e g e n è

Felix Vallotton, Intimacy, early 1900s

Woodcuts

out-of-season holiday decorations and superficial perforations and cold night, neg-red-digits in an IOU -

my skin an inflatable effigy and the fan turnt down running lower rpm in this breathless, icicle air

ten-thousand restless nights, folding wishes into tiny paper laterns, I wait,

token clutched to chest pending news, any, crawling my way back always from some hostile place

some miserable, quadropedal curr,

I shelter at your door and I purr, begging, some soft, warm place to heal

pleading

a mouthful, subsistence

as the years stack up I find the answers to my oldest questions in strange places

I find philosophy in a cup of coffee

I find love in a gesture

I find faith in aimless stories and unsure smiles

THE ANGEL OF HEARTH AND HOME (Max Ernst, 1937)

Rodel Tapaya (Filipino, b. 1980)

Legend of Papaya, 2017

Thrashing in its bind of eternal ice, Horns of frost that blind the bare eye - Anathema to dream of a sunbeam, Trapped on the incubator's altar

A false blue sky that suffocates all A gnash of hunger, a deepened distress A waning storm that will return stronger An anticyclone that steals all I desire

In the throes of constant sacrifice, I have never once doubted its truth

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