The laundrywomen no longer frequent this river

bend because soldiers have begun to bathe in it.

I hate the forest, its camphor chokehold. The pool
where you disrobe. Your stateside fatigues

collapsed in the dust like a dead man. Judging by the way

you ambled into our town, nobody would
have guessed you are the same age as the school-

teacher. You are here because you claim

there is war in the mountains. Because we fly 
your flag in the school quadrant every morning;

the throat of Candaba’s main street emptied

of all your debauchery, the church
bells aching to be filled with sound the way

you dive into water and occupy it; the pond struggling

to remember its shape. I think I desired you then,
or desired how you held her

frail brown hand like a sparrow in the ivory

mortar of your grip. How that hand would 
later hold her jaw, her neck, your melting

fistful of ice cream. Her laundry

hangs shamefully on the clothesline
and something is wafting out of the barracks.

Hey kid, you whistle. The acacias hum, full of the dark

honey of wild bees and your tongue is a fat sow
turning in the sorry spit of your mouth. I have dirtied this

water. I have led you to it. The stink of summer follows

you like a wounded dog, and I am no longer a child. Hey 

kid, you call again. I turn away from the water. Caught

in the trees, God in a starched dress dangles

the waning moon like a lure.
after Juan T. Gatbonton