My People

You look for the ones you can say my people,
                 my people with—     or they look for you and you 
could find each other even in the unlikeliest 
                 places:            a tap on the shoulder while the glittery
gala crowd does the electric slide for the thousandth
                time;          at the Greyhound station or airport
transfer terminal. You don't have to answer Are you
                from here-here or there-               there or if you 
bought tickets to watch that guy whose sold out      
                shows rehash our fathers'      and uncles' 
backyard jokes, and you get why halo-halo with rice
                krispies is OK but someone has to draw        the line
at gummy candy or pop rocks. And OK sure, P in place of F 
               or vice versa—          but with the ones you can say 
my people, my people with, there is no need to explain
               the tingle of calamansi in the air,            distinct
from orange or navel or tangerine.  My people, my 
               people, perhaps we can roll        with the times 
and dip them in sweet-sour sauce but we can't wear pineapple 
               shirts and butterfly sleeves                  for halloween or do 
the haka in a woven g-string.  And yes, even a certain 
              dictator's son has                     blood on his hands. 
Know what I mean? Even if we are, we don't always have 
              to be engineers or doctors or nurses,                    the kind            
that irate patients demand should be replaced by "real" ones.
              Hail the nannies and maids that mop the floor          so hard-
working, always so hard-working, the caregiver who used to be
             an OFW in the Middle East                  assigned to octogenarians 
at a home; the girl who walked around a foreign city with her camera,
             documenting how our women met                   in public parks
to share food and news of safehouses and better jobs.  Hail
             the trending ube lattes,            the omnipresent roasted pig, bags
of daing and barako that make their way, hand to traveling hand:
            their smoky, salty notes, indelible     signatures in the air.