Prelude

I’m scared of this masterpiece,

                          how I painted it so perfectly

with every bit of green and blue, sewed

                          to a threshold of fragmented doors—

a tapestry of thoughts, where everything is new.

                          I was drawn

to a morning so sullen.

                          From the wooden chair in front, I stared, not

the spitting rain, but the woman dancing.

                          She was humming as she twirls, slowly

and gracefully, while her onyx hair oscillates

as her silvery silk dress’s.

                          Her unpainted lips—

untainted

                          but filled me with lust.

It prickled my soul

                          down to my skin. It didn’t hurt

as much as she run away

                          towards the sleeping forest.

I chased her footprints. It’s all I remember.

                          I should have known the price

of entering— was to lose my trails.

                          But I opened. And I felt alive.

Mercury

It was cold and placid

             when the night bleeds into Rayleigh, painting

                                         the dome, azure

                                         with scattered crimson flames;

                                         that smothered

                                         any remnants of the stars.

Uncovering the old tea house,

             managed by old man Strauss, where

                                         I always sit

                                         behind the rusty gate, waiting

                                         for the hour of your ochre hue-

enough to make me howl

                                    like a wolf to the moon.

Jeff William Acosta

Jeff William Acosta is a Filipino poet from Ilocos Sur. He is a co-winner of the Sahaya:Timpalak Pampanitikan (STP) 2021 of UP Sentro ng Wikang Filipino-Diliman. He also became a 2021 Jack Grapes Poetry semifinalist and Boston Review Annual Poetry Contest semifinalist. His poems have been published or are forthcoming in Boston Review, 聲韻詩刊 Voice & Verse Poetry Magazine,The Dark Horse, CAROUSEL, Matter Press, The Margins and elsewhere.