There is a bird that keeps
crashing into your window,
mistaking your desire for sky.
It is the rhythm of the ribs’
hymn returning to itself
in the hush after midnight. You kneel
on the tiled floor, repeating
a name you haven’t said in years.
What you want is not
resolution, but contact: the exact
pressure of a hand around a wrist—
not to restrain, just to anchor.
You are desperate for one thirst
in your room that can be filled.
Jessie Raymundo is a poet and educator from the Philippines. In 2024, he was awarded a Brooklyn Poets Fellowship. His poems have appeared in TAB: The Journal of Poetry and Poetics, The Madrid Review, South Dakota Review, North Dakota Quarterly and elsewhere.
ELEVENTH HOUR LITERARY 