You thought of that day in Arizona before winter ended:

the fog cleared, we stood breathless on the canyon.

There was music, a hundred whispers of lows and highs

amplifying a chorus, letting go to begin once more.

You felt like coming home to a place

you’ve never been to before. You were afraid

of the fall, but slipping wouldn’t have been

a bad way to go. Thereafter, we flew

in airtight cabins to the next coast.

I began to mind how our songs

could fill minute fissures, shadowy bends,

a hairbreadth’s length of a hole,

the space within and between—

where distance and proximity persist

and mean nothing.

The tower withstands storms and insists

on touching the sky. Imagining your breath,

I breathe deeply to forget my fear of heights.

You thought of flying to the edge of the world,

the pervading wind whistling over oceans,

pallid cliffs, its unperturbed method

of movement, bending fields, carrying seeds,

scattering elements, again and again.

CORIN B. ARENAS is an audiophile and ghostwriter based in the Philippines. Her poems have been published in The Achieve of, The Mastery: Volume II Filipino Verse and Poetry from mid ‘90s-2016 (2018), Tremble: The University of Canberra Vice-Chancellor’s Poetry Prize Anthology (2016), The Silliman Journal (2013), and The Philippines Graphic Magazine (2010).

Corin studied in Miriam College and earned a Bachelor’s degree in Communication Arts. She attended the 18th IYAS National Writers Workshop in 2018, and the 52nd Silliman University National Writers Workshop in 2013 as a fellow for poetry. She completed an MA in Creative Writing from the University of the Philippines, Diliman.