Bouncing, rebounding on the floor of my memory - the ball of my elder sister’s jackstones and the lead washer of my elder brother’s sipa travelling to and fro the tops and yoyos among the imaginary bread doughs of gathered dust from that childhood sprinkled with the *** of yesterday to bake make-believe rice puddings and rice cakes - they seem to be spoiled now in the food cupboards of computers and eventually interred in the graveyards of cellular phones
In the cemetery of memories the ghost of poverty still haunts never, ever unescapable
for every gulp of you warmly soothes the throats of scenarios of all dramas and movies in that nesting home now decrepit, debilitated: after the day’s toils: you helped me swallow the lump of aromatic rice - cooked by Mother - the old fragrant stock that she loaned from the vendor from Quezon not even a piece of dried fish accompanying nothing else, only you, my brewed coffee nice both as dip and soup.
A translation of my poem "Kapeng Barako III" published on October 4, 2017