The Surrogate

When I was born I was not given
a name equivalent to “Fragrant
Blossom” or “Perfect

Fulfillment.” It took
six years before they
found me ready for a rite

of baptism. Was it because
I was sick so much, shortly
after exiting the womb?

Instead of candle
flame and holy water,
they wished to trick

the gods into believing
I was some wolf child
or changeling,

some stray that came
limping into a basket left
at the door. They called me

with strings of syllables,
sounds made by clicking
the tongue against

the roof of the mouth—
my first lullabies, shadows of
the child I should have been.

Check and balance

At the station, when a man
lost consciousness and fell face-
down on the moving escalator, a throng
gathered quickly at the base to pull
him to safety. A woman came through
the barrier, saying “I’m a doctor.”
The station manager activated the safety
switch and called for an ambulance.
A young man with a skateboard under
his arm rummaged in his backpack
for a gym towel to stanch the bleeding.
The emergency response team arrived
with a pallet and a gurney. All this
happened swiftly, with very few words
exchanged— only the movement of hands
and bodies wanting to save: strangers
lifting the stricken one, instead of
leaving him to possibly languish
in a pool of his own blood; there
in the middle of the city, on a grimy
platform that shuddered every now
and then as trains hurtled past.

Role models

(Lord’s day). Up and to church, and thence home, my wife being ill of those kept her bed all day, and I up and dined by her bedside, and then all the afternoon till late at night writing some letters of business to my father stating of matters to him in general of great import, and other letters to ease my mind in the week days that I have not time to think of, and so up to my wife, and with great mirth read Sir W. Davenant’s two speeches in dispraise of London and Paris, by way of reproach one to another, and so to prayers and to bed.

night letters
matter to the ink

an ant’s praise
of a roach


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 7 February 1663/64.

Open letter

Three months after the election and still
I scratch my head at the incongruity
every time I learn about yet another
Filipino American who’s voted

for the current president. Some of them
are friends! former classmates! A student
reported the day after the election,
glumly, that his own parents also voted

for the sadly now incumbent. I want to shake
them by the shoulders— gently, but shake them
nonetheless— and say brother, sister, kapatid,
what’s the color of the face that looks out

at you from the mirror when you make hilamos
every morning? And did you hear that our
country of origin has been added to the list
of seven on that Muslim ban? Even if you’re

naturalized; even if you have a green
card; even if you’ve lived here most of your
adult life, dutifully sending money and an annual
Balikbayan Box back to your folks in the province,

amply furnishing that fantasy of the American Dream
with your two-car garage, your two-door refrigerator
with programmable ice dispenser, your Magic Sing and
Singtronic Karaoke Machine— one misplaced lisp

and they’ll think you’re FOB; one look at you
and they’ll ask why you’re falsely practicing
medicine or nursing and will ask for a “real”
professional; one look at you and they’ll demand

proof of your ability to teach history or English
or mathematics to their child. And is it this
that’s fueled your love for designer this
and that and everything? that fear of being

mistaken for the maid or the driver or the houseboy,
leading to a carefully curated list of expensive
desires? Ah is it still so hard to love our many
times colonized bodies, that memory of indios

stuck in the mud and muck of the fields
while the landlord rode by on horseback
or picked one of our wives or daughters
to take to the shed and bed?

Why else did we laugh and jeer
back in the day at Elizabeth Ramsey,
half black (Jamaican father) and half
Filipino (Visayan mother) as she belted

out her meanest Proud Mary on live TV?
She would have made Tina Turner proud,
but all we did was point to her ‘fro,
her full lips and dark skin,

and chant Negrita, Negrita, as if she
too was like one of those Aetas
we were always scaring our children
would come down from the mountains

to take them away if they were bad.
I have news for you, said Carlos
Bulosan during the emaciated years
of the Great American Depression—

a phrase so full of ambivalence it’s
like an Alt Fact for that poor sad time
in 1920s America when the crops—
garlic, asparagus, grapes— would all

have rotted in the fields or on the vine
were it not for cheap stoop labor—
migrant labor— provided by some of our
forefathers up and down the California

coast. I have news for you, and it is that
I have discovered it is a crime to be
a Filipino in America today.
Then
and now, Carlos; then and now—

unless we join with our other sisters
and brothers protesting in the streets,
refusing to be written off, fucked over,
or otherwise relegated to history.

Rally

Up, and to the office, where we sat all the morning, and so at noon to the ‘Change, where I met Mr. Coventry, the first time I ever saw him there, and after a little talke with him and other merchants, I up and down about several businesses, and so home, whither came one Father Fogourdy, an Irish priest, of my wife’s and her mother’s acquaintance in France, a sober, discreet person, but one that I would not have converse with my wife for fear of meddling with her religion, but I like the man well. Thence with my wife abroad, and left her at Tom’s, while I abroad about several businesses and so back to her, myself being vexed to find at my first coming Tom abroad, and all his books, papers, and bills loose upon the open table in the parlour, and he abroad, which I ranted at him for when he came in. Then by coach home, calling at my cozen Scott’s, who (she) lies dying, they say, upon a miscarriage. My wife could not be admitted to see her, nor anybody. At home to the office late writing letters, and then home to supper and to bed. Father Fogourdy confirms to me the newes that for certain there is peace between the Pope and King of France.

we vent with chants

our religion like the road
is an open table
for dying on

a body confirms
a certain peace


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 6 February 1663/64.

Taking stock

Up, and down by water, a brave morning, to Woolwich, and there spent an houre or two to good purpose, and so walked to Greenwich and thence to Deptford, where I found (with Sir W. Batten upon a survey) Sir J. Minnes, Sir W. Pen, and my Lady Batten come down and going to dinner. I dined with them, and so after dinner by water home, all the way going and coming reading “Faber Fortunae,” which I can never read too often. At home a while with my wife, and so to my office, where till 8 o’clock, and then home to look over some Brampton papers, and my uncle’s accounts as Generall-Receiver of the County for 1647 of our monthly assessment, which, contrary to my expectation, I found in such good order and so, thoroughly that I did not expect, nor could have thought, and that being done, having seen discharges for every farthing of money he received, I went to bed late with great quiett.

I walk to survey the water
which I can never read

at home with my wife and clock
I count my money


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 5 February 1663/64.

Year of the rooster

Who comes from the southeast
carrying quiet threats?

Who comes from the north
wielding a stone of compassion?

Where I stand in the yard
staking a persimmon sapling,

a lash of wind feels like
the tip of an oncoming army.

Who comes from the east
flapping broad, inky wings?

I hurry without showing my hurry
into the labyrinth of my nest.

My dearest treasure hides as one
crystal in a handful of salt.

Media noche

Night after night, resisting
with bites of food, a few

more piles of work
then shot glasses filled

with tinctures that mimic
the bracing heart of a wood—

Everything’s still shrouded
with the chill of winter,

and sleep is the angel
that wants to guide our feet

toward the tomb. But we won’t
practice those songs yet.

We’ll waltz away at dawn, hungry
for strong black coffee and bread.

 

In response to Via Negativa: Bookworm.

Bookworm

Up and to the office, where after a while sitting, I left the board upon pretence of serious business, and by coach to Paul’s School, where I heard some good speeches of the boys that were to be elected this year. Thence by and by with Mr. Pullen and Barnes (a great Non-Conformist) with several others of my old acquaintance to the Nag’s Head Taverne, and there did give them a bottle of sacke, and away again and I to the School, and up to hear the upper form examined; and there was kept by very many of the Mercers, Clutterbucke, a Barker, Harrington, and others; and with great respect used by them all, and had a noble dinner. Here they tell me, that in Dr. Colett’s will he says that he would have a Master found for the School that hath good skill in Latin, and (if it could be) one that had some knowledge of the Greeke; so little was Greeke known here at that time. Dr. Wilkins and one Mr. Smallwood, Posers. After great pleasure there, and specially to Mr. Crumlum, so often to tell of my being a benefactor to the School, I to my bookseller’s and there spent an hour looking over Theatrum Urbium and Flandria illustrata, with excellent cuts, with great content. So homeward, and called at my little milliner’s, where I chatted with her, her husband out of the way, and a mad merry slut she is. So home to the office, and by and by comes my wife home from the burial of Captain Grove’s wife at Wapping (she telling me a story how her mayd Jane going into the boat did fall down and show her arse in the boat), and alone comes my uncle Wight and Mr. Maes with the state of their case, which he told me very discreetly, and I believe is a very hard one, and so after drinking a bottle of ale or two they gone, and I a little more to the office, and so home to prayers and to bed.
This evening I made an end of my letter to Creed about his pieces of eight, and sent it away to him. I pray God give good end to it to bring me some money, and that duly as from him.

my old clutter of books
strata from the burial of a grove

telling me how to fall
and in which hard bed


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 4 February 1663/64.

Our lands and all our loves

Look here, he said,
gathering up coins
from his coat pockets
and filling the jar
we kept by the door.
Copper and nickel,
zinc and old bronze.
Every bit caught by
our prudent means.
He said, Sooner
than you think we’ll
grow those dreams.

The sleeves of his jacket
thin in patches. Sharp
creased collars, that good
cotton smell from a hot iron.
I loved when we walked
to the library and looked
at books and globes and maps.
When he turned to a page
and pointed, in my mind I saw
a street on the other side
of the world, the house (gone now)
where I was born; even the pigeons
that roosted in the eaves knew
the syllables of our names.

 

In response to Via Negativa: Free trade.