Via Negativa

Both deceased, I write in a form 
that asks me to certify who I am
by naming my parents. I do also
write their names: old-fashioned 
names I don't always hear anymore.  
He was born in 1913, when stainless 
steel and the zipper were invented, 
though people still rode around
in carriages— which made the cities
smell like horseshit. She was born 
in 1933, the month a ringleted, tap-
dancing five-year-old was signed 
to a Hollywood studio contract, 
and on the very day the radio 
was first patented. Between them,
two whole decades. I know the story
of how they first met, which like most 
other stories they told seemed unreal
and extravagant, but never fiction. 
Like them, I have what my dentist
calls a small mouth, making a history 
of teeth as closely packed as the over-
lapping stones leading to Machu Picchu.
I have a wire brace behind my lower
central incisors, to correct the gap
after one of the lateral incisors 
was extracted. When my father died
in the aftermath of an earthquake,
his cooling body lay on their bed
for two days until we could find 
a coffin. When my mother died, 
her caregivers washed and dressed her, 
and then her body went straight to 
the crematorium. The new year
doesn't feel new anymore, until
the lunar new year. Already, there are 
festive cakes in red and gold tins at
the Asian groceries. This is supposed 
to be the Year of the Dragon, a year 
predicted to bring change, opportunity, 
and challenge. I don't  remember 
who said predictions are hard to make,
especially about the future. 
 

Picture the emergence of a trillion zinging
bodies, up through damp earth after

long seasons of fumbling, seventeen years
each cycle. Abundance and ambition, their bugle

cries the signal of readiness to mate. XIII 
and XIX (largest of all broods) shed their carapace    
 
in the process of growing adult bodies and wings.   
They’re vulnerable in between states, but doggedly

tuned to the frequencies of fate. Before you can say vacation, 
they’ll mate, lay eggs, then die— A story just as exquisite

as any long-drawn out romantic tragedy. Carpe diem, use
it or lose it; though really, we lose it all at the end. Frenzy
 
of desire in the face of extinction; whirlwind courtship, then
off to the Chapel of Love in Vegas. Red-eyed and glossy-

veined, just days later you come across discarded suits,
torn bouquets of fishnet stockings, casino tokens. Hafiz

said, Even though the drunkenness of love has ruined
me, my being’s built upon those ruins for eternity. Icing

spackles the slice of cake in the freezer—quaint 
custom we have for marking anniversaries. By July,

the escalated rasp of tymbals in the trees gradually peters
out. Soon it’s time to harvest radish, potatoes, and kabocha

before wintering. Migrating flocks raise their muted oboes   
as they disappear from view, and the cycles of labor

and love begin anew. Bank fires, shelter the coals. Nesting   
with yourself means forbearance, the tempering of melismas.

Relevance is a question that bubbles 
up now and again. In an elevator

packed with people, I sometimes wonder
if they would read me; if my particulars 

resonate enough for them to remember. 
The doors close and open. At a party, 

I linger near the table of cocktail 
shrimp and dip, refill my plate, listen 

to revealing conversations around me. 
I try to do what our hosts say as they prowl 

the room—Enjoy!  How to find space amid
spheres of ever-shifting fractals, and how I want

to believe no branch or starry bifurcation 
could ever be merely identical to the next.

The sounds of dishes washed in the sink, the smell of coffee brewing. 
      In the dining room, last night I talked with an old friend on Zoom—
my former college Philosophy teacher, now approaching his eighth 
      decade, hair gone grey and sparse but face still youthful. All around, 
books and papers spill over shelves and counters. Winter shadows 
      frost the window panes. He used to study beads among highland 
tribes: smoky agates, striped jasper, cloudy carnelian—heirlooms 
       passed down in families, until dire straits forced their sale. Likewise, 
I've wished to leave meaningful objects with those I love. I have a pair 
       of Kalinga earrings, discs of mother-of-pearl; a beaded T'boli blouse, 
a few bits of abaca fabric embroidered by hand. Beside the kitchen clock,
       a carved granary god with sooty countenance sits, unaware that the heat 
in our house has gone out. Winter without, wintry within. We feel it in our 
      bones, hunting for some  bright amulet whose light won't go out.

(for Benjie Abellera)

I can't remember the name of the girl in high school who tried 
to convince us to smoke by saying "It's just like inhaling paper."

After school, we'd walk to Session Road and try to get into Gingerbread
Folkhouse, where college kids drank beer and passed around rolling papers.

A group would sit around in their denim bell-bottoms, strumming
guitars, puffing smoke rings, writing editorials for the newspaper.

We were all young and green, naive to the  world. Some pretended  
to turn up their noses at fashion magazines with glossy paper.

Apparently one could not be trusted to be loyal to the cause if one
harbored bourgeois aspirations: heavy stock stationery paper,

bread and cheese; art, movies, poetry that cared about the strength 
and beauty of language besides the violence we read about in the papers.

These days, no one is spared, no one set apart from the cruelties of human
hate. I try to keep my heart open despite heartrending news in the papers.