PEERING through the nicotine haze,
enveloping the narrow esquinita that led to my dormitory,
my eyes set on a moth hovering beside the crucifix on a door.
Heeding my mother’s words, I bowed my head and prayed
that the soul it harbored might find its way to heaven,
as it disappeared into the fading light of dusk.
I noticed that my shadow was not following me
and I felt the hair on my skin stand on end,
for as the elders warned, “he who walks with no shadow
is soon to meet his doom.”
I tried to overpower this unnerving feeling
with my fondest memories of home
then I suddenly recalled my father’s words:
“We believe in different things,
but we are but different strands
woven into the same cloth.”
Such words kept my skepticism in check,
as I glanced and counted the numbers
painted on the side of an unfinished building?
10, 11, 12, 14?and hoped that its good fortune would stay true.
Such give me solace,
as I walked through the haunting alley,
listening to the dogs howling,
and the neighbor striking their heads with a slipper,
fearing that their howls
heralded the death of someone dear.
And as I climbed the steps of my dormitory,
I found myself amid both peers and strangers,
preserving the same truths of life,
in a city where the lonesome heart sleeps alone.
C.A.P. Sta.Cruz
