the last anyone saw her,                        she was laying
flat on her plastic               back upright  [head         staring ahead;
                                      against the wall;
still, blonde & blue; still smiling;
bathing suit gone to puffs of soapy silk
bubble pop;                    her eyes are communicative;

her hippy daughter put in the                      bathwater;
                              | [evoking the sea]         nymphs    & mermaids:
mother leaning over
the balcony smoking
                         a cigarette Calling Di Di:
on the balcony below;                              Di Di's cocktail is a man - -    
                teenage Joe,
                Satan's child by the moon;
he only ever loved
                                one woman           in his life;
Suzy,                 drowned           in the tidal wave of 1997
                             that hit Manila:
                             his poetry about her                            
                  several half-sisters
& the         zombies he sees in -
                  his prophetic sleep
                                                           get                him jumped;
jailed                    &          deported from
                              Duterte's Philippines;
although famous among the diaspora - -
legendary                         prostitutes & drug-dealers            
        found                           ­        dead in the street &
        brought back to sordid                        life [like]                     |
              Suzy & teenage Joe:                                              |
             ­           thrown out w/                  |     the garbage
                   like pulp magazines:                             |
                   & hunted    like        |
                   African               Abinoes