Dusk in the azotea, swain whistling

From the shadows, for she couldn’t

See him without chaperone,

These seem what the whole languid

Posture of her betrays: far from the huntress

With her escopeta, sash gripping

Her waist like a bandolier of shots,

Unlikely accoutrements she could never

Use against the fawn at her feet,

Much less guard against the advances

Of timid young men, frightened as she was

Of the father that dominated her household,

Gentry stalwart, upholder of the status quo,

Owner of the wood that stretched just beyond

The walls surrounding the bahay na bato,

Where she grew up with novenas and scapulars,

And family dinners with the cura parroco.

 

But what makes her dream so blithely

Of danger in the moor where she leans

In provocative whimsy against

The twisted bole of a dead tree?

Whose incarnation was it she fancied

Herself to be: In her delicate barò and saya,

The crinkly panuelo hung from her

Shoulders like a Capuchin cowl pulled back

To reveal her fragile half-smile—

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