Published Poetry
Of missing home
Bibingka, puto, polvoron, and turon—desserts that speak my stories of home onto your tongue, dear guest.
I offer you a taste of my language: vowels round with rice flour and syllables rolled into delicate rice paper and dripping with sweet coconut milk.
Can you hear the open-mouthed laughter of my grandmother, my mother, and I, our foreheads dotted with sweat, baking in our dirty kitchen? Or does my home grow slowly nameless in your mouth?
Where words once were, the flavors of my people now flow, set free from the fruit’s flesh—are you amazed?
You who dare to say “banana” without knowing the sweetness that first condenses, thickens, and then, in consuming grows awake, transparent, sunny, earthly, alive—like the harana, a lover’s song exchanged at open windows.
Dear guest, sitting at this table, unknowingly pulling a chair up to my home.
Exeunt
Remember, you and I. The entire length of our love on the floor.
Three fingers, on the right hand only.
I have worn your skin. Eaten the language from your mouth.
What will your hands do with me when they are done?
Will they fold my tender flesh into your memory’s blanket a hundred times in half?
Will they gather promises that begin with “remember,” and pack them beside phrases about the past?