June 2019

To Mother

Mai Santillan June 24, 2019

The poet dedicates this to her own mother, Lea Belen Santillan. The first poem she has ever written for her.

Under the tangerine sky
           I frantically wore
            my yellow tsinelas
            from an afternoon 
            of bato lata 
            and Slipper X

I dusted myself off
and waved farewell
to my playmates
as their mothers
wiped sweat off their faces
with Good Morning towels

I wonder
why Mother never 
           fetched me
           from the plaza

           made my assignments

           or let me cheat
           on quizzbees 

What does it mean to Mother?

Read More

What the Brooke’s Point Farmer Taught Me

Nico Pablo June 24, 2019

There are things bigger than me.

           Like husking the coconut 

           to sip its water,

           hacking the shell, and scraping the meat

           into strands before the third moon sets.

Perhaps your oracle eye fishes

in the shallows for the glimmer of a treasure

chest in the waters off this Palawan quarry.

           Like deciding which fruits of the earth

           can sell, recicada, in any weather

           or can enter the tapahan

           where smoke becomes copra.

No crows seem to caw 

at the rim of the memory

of houses built in debt.

           Like your sun-drenched face cracking open

           to let laughter out. The pink flower

           on your granddaughter?s cake blooms

           against bales of hay piled by rice paddies.

There are things bigger than my stories,

like this island unbowed before a drought,

like the hard shell of the earth.

The Mermaid Speaks

Nico Pablo June 24, 2019

I cannot remain

The fairytale of the seafoam

Or flicker of maiden?s

Face in the pool.

By your hand,

I churn, fluid 

As my temple. 

And am I not creature –

Necessary creation 

Of what surrounds me? 

See my disappearing fin,

Camouflaged in synthetic fiber

Flora, ghostlings

Of progress. 

Call me leviathan.

My ocean body shimmers:

Constellation of seaglass, bottles without messages, 

Sunlit scale among silver bellies of wrappers, 

Rainbow coral and oil spill, pearl and polystyrene,

Plastic bags bobbing like jellyfish heads.  

Now call me Gorgon,

Slithering 

Hair slathered in venom.

Peer into my eyes.

Tell me 

What you see.