ESL or You Weren't Here. Aldrin Valdez
us,
we emerge like caryatids from the sheets
as Mariah
& Whitney
& Celine,
the fabric cascading to our furniture-turned-stages.
siyam
Mga kapatid ko say
I amKSP:Kulang Sa Pansin.
When they’re really trying
to make the pikon in me
come out they say
I amKSP:Kulangot Sa Pader.
And I get flustered—
I am not lacking attention!
I am not a booger on the wall!
I am a huffed-up balloon of Tagalog curses—
which I promised
to Lord
Jesus Christ
I would
never,
ever
say
again
if he would just please save my family and me from hell?
A never-ending
litany
of saviors, saints, & the prospective saved
lulls me to sleep each night like a pacifier.
sampu
But it is Nanay who rescues me
from the tukso of my Kuya and Ates.
Nanay is dilaw ng manga in an asul morning.
The rustling of the plastic bag she unfurls
is also the wrinkled, brown skin
of her hand as she offers me a mango.
I have missed dinner and she wakes me up now
and takes me outside where it is so blue
even the air seems colored-in
& the yellow of the mango hums in this blue.
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