Exiliados

for Monica Sok

We didn't hold typhoons or tropics in our hands.  I didn't reach across the table on our first date    at Cornelia Street Café. In my humid pockets,

my fists were old tennis balls thrown to the stray dog  of love bouncing toward the Hudson down    to South Ferry. We didn't hold hands in that cold

October wind, but the waves witnessed our promise  to return to my cratered-deforested homeland,    and you to your parents', sometime in the future.

No citizenship or some other violence in our countries  (separated by the Pacific, tied by the latitude    of dragon fruits, tamarinds, mangosteens) was why

we couldn't, and can't, return for now. Then, us  in the subway at 2 am, oh the things I dreamt: a kiss    to the back of your neck, collarbone, belly-button, there—

to kneel and bow my head, then return to the mole  next to your lips and taste your latitude together.    Instead, I went home, you touched my cheek,

it was enough. I stood, remembering what it's like  to stand on desert dirt wishing stars would fall    as rain, on that huge dark country ahead of me.