FOUR POEMS
Manananggal
The Hazy Visits of Past Narratives
The Bedroom Poems: California
Venus on the Half Shell
Manananggal
"I had heard so much that these women were very sincere, very loving, very caring, very faithful. And I always had admired Polynesian-type women...I always thought they were very beautiful women."
-Testimony from Timothy Blackwell, while on trial for the murder of his wife Susana (Remarata) Blackwell
Susana, hair down, is sexy dead.
Outside my window the Staten Island
volcano turns the southern sky hell.
Grabbing her hand, running, the lava
reaches us and chars our heels.
She cradles her belly.
I tell her, Bangungot lang ito.
Susana, hair down is lovely pregnant.
Pulling on Susana’s hand, we run
but lava sears southern Manhattan.
Air thickens with exhaust and screams
Manhattan turns into Manila.
Susana collapses.
I don’t know how to save her.
But there is no sadness, only a deep
hunger. I am neither poet nor woman.
My body halved: legs left behind,
I have bat wings, I can sweep us,
fly anywhere, but instead,
and I can’t help it, my hollow
tongue rolls from my mouth, slithers towards
her pregnant belly, punctures it.
And with almost no regret
I consume what would've been a baby girl.
The Hazy Visits of Past Narratives
- What was once Mooney’s Pub.
- The flan I never made.
- Woolrich buffalo plaid.
- On the F train. Almost.
- The baking aisle of a grocery store at midnight.
- Now I've heard there was a secret chord.
- That David played, and it pleased the Lord.
- Scrolling through the As of my phone. Stumbling.
- The ache of my foot arch.
- The desolate stretch of Third Street between 3rd and Bond.
My bed is built. The bedroom built around the bed.
I am leaning in close trying to hear the love next door.
That is what loves sounds?
He is shushing her.
And there are bruises appearing on my wrists.
I can hide them with my thighs.
Until I am touched and then the weeping.
There is that lonely sound again, the bed move.
Who is my bed tonight.
We have several storms this week, and then a rarity of ray.
We plan our naps on the days with sun.
Tuesday.
Sunday.
Thing days.
Thigh days.
My skin is marked and the deep brown of the layers complicates my wantings. I want.
What wants my bruised thigh.
Only the bruise.
A picture is not enough, so what must do what what does.
There is the paring knife.
There is the apple.
It starts with the halving.
The coring.
The achiest part? The curled apple peel’s falsetto.
Venus rose from the sea today as part of her annual virgin birth. She is fully formed and lovely.The world continues to gaze at Beauty while she rings the foam from her hair. She drifted to shore on a scallop shell. Experts are using what experts use so they can say, without any sort of reasonable doubt, that yes, this woman is Venus.
Onlookers remarked that this year's Venus is more voluptuous than last year's Venus. Dr. Lief Nielsen said, "It has been a year of feeling hungry. Our desire of flesh is more like a desire for flesh. This is not to say we will eat more women than we do usually, but we have yet to establish a baseline for such a comparison."
Dr. Nielsen also stated he and number of experts will meet to look at Venus. "She is brighter than even the brightest star."
was raised near the 105 and 710 freeways in L.A. She currently lives near an F/G stop in Brooklyn. Kimiko Hahn selected her manuscript, Fragments of Loss, for a 2010 Poetry Society of America National Chapbook Fellowship. She is also a Kundiman fellow and a graduate of the Sarah Lawrence Writing program. She collects fragments of loss here: http://fragmentsofloss.tumblr.com/