Manhattan Rain
 
(For con)
 
Walking down Lexington Avenue, 
beneath the rainlashed canyons of Manhattan, 
you by my side, unbrella-less, 
your eyes misting like dark welling pools, 
how can we survive the autumn pall? 
As we turn left on 43rd Street East 
towards La Bibliotheque on a dead end street, 
in the wet panic of a sudden downpour 
I cry: "Run, we'll make it!" 
 
We'll make it, as we made it years ago, 
remembering that trek to Tubao in Luzon, 
to flee the fire-gutted mountain city 
and disemboweling bombs of friendly forces, 
the rain drenching the thin shreds of our escape, 
and you, heavy in the womb 
with our first-born-to-be, 
clinging to rope I tied around your waist 
to hoist you up through mud-slicked steeps, 
clinging to hope the way 
the despairing clutch at and claw 
the dank unreachable 
nothingness that's everywhere, 
the way the drowning strangle 
in the airless deep. . ."Hang on!" 
"We'll make it," I cried, "hang on!" 
 
Con, my wife and mother of our seven joys, 
how long ago since last we shared 
The fled persuasiveness of panic in the rain? 
 
Walking crosstown to Park Avenue 
under a steady drizzle of the ended day, 
you hand me the evening paper to cover my head 
and protect me from remembrances. 

--Carlos A. Angeles