Barbara Jane Reyes

One Question, Several Answers 2

After Claire Kageyama-Ramakrishnan

 

Where did your father live?

             Casa de Mahistrado Reyes, City of Quezon.

 

Where did your father live?

              Paper skinned mother beneath umbrellas.

 

Where did your father live?

             Near the Pasig, in a too many sisters house.

 

Where did your father live?

             By a guava tree.

             With guavas, sour guavas eaten by lizards.

 

Where did your father live?

             Jeproks.

 

Where did your father live?

             With thin veils of bribes.

             Offerings rejected by his father.

 

 

[....]

Barbara Jane Reyes

Where did your father live?

             Whistling through college to pick up chicks.

             Whistling on streets in a porkpie hat.

             Whistling for my mother.

 

Where did your father live?

             The one-room upstairs apartment.

 

Where did your father live?

             With my mother,

             My aunt, her husband, my sister, me.

 

Where did your father live?

             In my mother's panic.

 

Where did your father live?

             There, and then here.

 

Where did your father live?

             With transcontinental flights.

             With delata and leftover rice.

             With nights of gunshots, universal welcome.

 

 

Copyright © Barbara Jane Reyes. White Whale Review, issue 2.2