Commuter Studies: Makati to Manila

by Justin Andrew Cruzana

My legs are in default to walking in a city that no longer remembers agility. This cratered coil of hard earth could make better exits

and better homes. On this side of the Metro, I trace my name in the fatty smoke. My hand raised for every passing cab, eager fingers throbbing

like a homing device. This is no city. A city that forgets the people inside it is a city that forgets itself. So I look for cracks

on the sidewalk with the pale intent to humble. To pry open municipal sins the way it pries open the patience of pedestrians.

When the overcast comes, I mistake it for another tower, for its ginger loom and trickster color. Water becomes the only thing moving in a city

that only knows pause but does not know where to cascade. Sky-sent lyre strings go through still cars and commuters strum the traffic in the leaving time.

Can you hear it? The city is so out of tune; the lungs on the highway are a basin of a commuter’s pain. In Buendia, I bowed hello to the sacking rain. F