by Papa Osmubal

It is not like the city I know.
Rush hour and no shoving around,
no peeves, no pickpockets, no eyes
whose gazes are shouts and wounds—
shouting wounds, wounding shouts.
It is just me on the bus, the driver, who,
I guess, might be thinking I am
a pickpocket who chose the wrong bus,
and a lady who side glanced at me
when I got on and looked around
for a cozy seat and spot. It is a privilege,
rather more like a miraculous occasion,
to have this rare chance to choose
a seat on a bus in this city.

It is a desert in this bus. This bus
is a desert. Silence is suffocating, nagging.
For a while I look at the driver to figure
out what is going on in his head. He opens
the side window next to him, slightly,
enough for us to breathe. The first gust
of wind is a hysterical shout, a scream,
that wakes us up, proclaiming something, speaking
in the language only God can utter.

Papa Osmubal is a poet, artist, calligrapher, researcher, and cultural advocate (and on-again, off-again photographer) of Filipino descent. He resides in Macau where he has been working as a school teacher. His most recent solo art exhibition, a collection of paper cuttings called Voice on Paper was held at and sponsored byFundação Rui Cunha 官樂怡基金會 in July 2017 in Macau. He is currently working on a new collection of paper cuttings for a future exhibition. His Capampangan etymology book, Capampangan Roots volume 1, won the Philippine National Book Award (Language Studies Category), awarded by the National Book Development Board (NBDB) and the Manila Critics Circle (MCC), in 2017.