Fog Physics
It’s just a collection of tiny drops
of water falling to the ground.
Don’t worry, folks, it’s okay to take
a ride today. We buckle ourselves in
and I am thinking, it’s just the earth’s
surface waiting for a kiss that never
comes. Remember, dear listeners,
visibility is only up to one thousand
metres or less. My father taps the
steering wheel lightly and I am
thinking, don’t cry gosh don’t cry.
We are travelling towards another
brooding city as my grandfather’s
bag of bones waits to become ash.
Five-one thousand it obscures the sky
four-one thousand it affects bridges
and mountains three-one thousand wars
two-one thousand fathers and sons
one-one thousand fathers and daughters.
I am failing to tell him I love him.
They say it passes. We pass it just as quickly.
of water falling to the ground.
Don’t worry, folks, it’s okay to take
a ride today. We buckle ourselves in
and I am thinking, it’s just the earth’s
surface waiting for a kiss that never
comes. Remember, dear listeners,
visibility is only up to one thousand
metres or less. My father taps the
steering wheel lightly and I am
thinking, don’t cry gosh don’t cry.
We are travelling towards another
brooding city as my grandfather’s
bag of bones waits to become ash.
Five-one thousand it obscures the sky
four-one thousand it affects bridges
and mountains three-one thousand wars
two-one thousand fathers and sons
one-one thousand fathers and daughters.
I am failing to tell him I love him.
They say it passes. We pass it just as quickly.
T. De Los Reyes is a poet and a designer. Her chapbook, Woeman, was published by Hawai’i Review in 2018. She was a finalist for the 2021 Sappho Prize by Palette Poetry. Her poems have previously appeared or are forthcoming in Pleiades, Split Lip Magazine, Cordite Poetry Review, Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, Rabbit Catastrophe Review, The Philippine Free Press, and The Philippine Graphic, among others. She lives and writes in Manila, Philippines.
Art: A Tower, oil on paper, Paulina Swietliczko