NIGHT
When in love I melt into yellow,
blend in with every light to become
the most luminous apparition.
You've come disguised, hair
upswept, eyes two shades
murkier than petroleum,
a face I've never seen but know
in-the-gut-of-me, I seem born
from it, but in mirroring honesty
I often fancy you
are someone else, I prefer
this, realizing how lacking
you are, I can be happy
with a stranger moon.
LIKE PETALS
Droplets of blood
dripped from the intimate bowels
spotted painterly, swirled
gauzily, flushed.
Earlier, when I cracked
the egg it dropped two
yolks like marigolds.
[ARE YOU MAN/OR BUTTERFLY]
Are you man/or butterfly,/the way your/dress billows/ over the/jackhammering/sidewalk? You’re/tulle slipping through/air, liquid/cement, gray/pavement got/ nothing on you,/equine-prancing/as if there’s no/war./ How good does/it feel for a/transformation/to fool no/one? But/yourself?/ Man swaddled/in silkworm/spit./ Reality wears/a thin veil.
JOSEPH O. LEGASPI, a Fulbright and NYFA fellow, is the author of two poetry collections from CavanKerry Press, Threshold (Fall 2017) and Imago (2007; Also, University of Santo Tomas Press (Philippines), 2015); and two chapbooks, Aviary, Bestiary (Organic Weapon Arts, 2014), and Subways (Thrush Press, 2013). Recent works have appeared in POETRY, New England Review, Memorious, Best of the Net, and the Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day. He co-founded Kundiman (www.kundiman.org), a non-profit organization serving Asian American literature. He lives with his husband in Queens, NY.