Sacramento – Manila

He and I are sixteen time zones apart.
It’s romantic, but kinda cuckoo.
I was squinting at the noontime light
when I told him, “the night is tinged
with a wine-red suggestion
and the evening air has spices
sent expressly from where the sun rises”
and I was crossing 29th Street
to cash my pay cheque
before the bank closed at 3pm
when he told me he was looking at the full moon
and thinking of me.

I told him to conquer the world
and he told me I was too smooth

little does he know
that I am only so
because there was no way
to conquer the distance
except by being as graceful
as a pinhole of light

if only I could also be as fast
then I’d be by his side