In the Graveyard
Danton Remoto
The walls round the graveyard
Are ancient and cracked.
The moss is too thick they look dark.
The paint on my grandfather’s tomb
Has the color of bone.
Two yellow candles we lighted,
Then we uttered our prayers.
On my left, somebody’s skull
Stares back at me: a black
Nothingness in the eyes.
The graveyard smells of dust
Finer than the pore of one’s skin—
Dust mixed with milk gone sour.
We are about to depart
When a black cat darts
Across our path, quickly,
With a rat still quivering
In its mouth.
*
Immigration Border Crossing
(From Sadao, Thailand to Bukit Changloon,
Malaysia)
Danton Remoto
On their faces that betray
No emotion
You can read the unspoken
Questions:
Are you really
A Filipino?
Why is your skin
Not the color of padi?
Your eyes,
Why are they slanted
Like the ones
Who eat babi?
And your palms,
Why are there no callouses
Layered like the roofs
Of our kampung?
And your sister,
Does she dance the dance
That is haram?
Or does she clean
The toilets of her masters?
And on Sundays, does she
Wear a red mini-skirt
To look for an Indian man
In the old mall at Kotaraya—
A tiny bird with feathers
The color of rainbows,
Chattering with other birds?
And are you not singing
Like the others from Melaka
To Kinabalu, crooning
Love songs in five languages?
And why are you tall, wearing
An elegant shirt of French cotton,
With a strand of necklace
Shimmering in gold?
Neither housemaid,
Nor mail-order bride.
Neither singer, nor smuggler,
You confound every one
In the immigration counter.
And why do you speak to us now
With your English so pitch-perfect
And so clear?
Padi – paddy fields
Babi – pig
Haram – dirty or forbidden
Fires
Danton Remoto
I don’t know what it is about your fingers
That caress my skin with a touch
Like breath warm and urgent in the lobes
Of my ears.
I don’t know what it is about your lips
That kiss my nose, my face, and nuzzle
My neck, opening the pores of my skin,
Leaving them humming.
I don’t know what it is about your tongue
That slides sinuously down my body, waking up
Nipples from their sleep, making the navel pout
With envy as your lips reach the silk of my thighs.
I don’t know what it is about your voice
That begins as a whisper in my ear, turning
Into grunts of delight as I light fires under your skin,
Blossoming into moans as your mouth opens and your eyes
close,
As I slowly trace your jaw line with my forefinger and tell
you how much
I love you.
*
My Five-Year-Old Nephew Talks to Me
Danton Remoto
Uncle, uncle, what happened to you?
Why is your smile as sticky as glue?
Then sometimes, my uncle, your smile is gone
Like the parts of my toy gun that came undone.
Some days you pass like a breeze in the house,
Your feet floating above the cat and the mouse.
Then sometimes your face is dark like a cloud.
You are silent, and your mute door is locked.
But this morning you went home with marks
On your neck – many small, red marks
That made my eyes wonder and widen.
So I told Yaya Mirren in the kitchen
To spray a can of Baygon in your room
So the mosquito that made your neck bloom
Into this red and sorry sight
Will no longer bite you—ferociously—at night.
The Laughter of Children
This is the way
Children laugh in my country.
Gathered round
The store in the street corner,
Standing or sitting on the wooden benches,
They laugh, their voices tinkling like bells,
While a dead man lies on the ground,
In front of them,
A bloom of blood drying
On his white shirt,
Three holes of bullets
Bursting his skin, leaving
Dark holes the shape of mouths
Screaming.
But oh, the children of my country,
Sipping soda from plastic straws
The color of rainbows,
Or eating pork skin crackling in the dry air,
The children they just laugh,
And crack jokes, black and buzzing,
Like the flies now alighting
On the corpse.
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