What does your tattoo mean?
"Rolled Sleeves"
The photographs captured her
shame. History echoes in the memory of ta-tak, ta-tak—
the calling of her forearms, the calling
of a past she remembered only
when she saw my back.
Old Woman, Old Wind from the North,
she traced the green-black lines that spell
in a downward, falling action:
Rage— or the times I knew nothing of my own blood,
nothing
of the entrapment of pineapple silk against brown skin,
of blacklists, dark oaths, privilege,
of the superiority of shades within 7,107 islands;
burnt being at the bottom,
of my two siblings who died
of the cold
and the measles,
of the missing peasant farmers and their teachers;
of their deserving disappearance
and reappearance in black water rivers.
These times were easy
on my ears and boiled questions
to just the right temperature.
Rebellion—or the times I found out that bamboo
was more useful than oak trees,
that my parents were helping me by not showing me
how to think in their language; an American accent grew brain
cells,
that middle school teachers could kick me out of class
for commenting on the presidents or
refusing to bake a red velvet cake or
laughing in the face of the (F)ilipino instructor who claimed to have
saved lives while serving in the marines. the marines
that tried to cover up Daniel Smith’s carpool ride—
the Visiting Forces
of the master’s helping hands.
These times were hard
on my back and charged questions
in every direction.
Reason— or the times mentors from the Filipino Youth Coalition sat by my side
and told me stories of konquistador killers
from my island; men and women who took pieces
of Magellan and wore them out
side during momentary celebration,
and my parents knew nothing about these savages
and only read about them in books
and that they were extinct,
and that if they did still roam the mountains…
then they were not Pilipinos,
and that they were to be studied. my parents
also told me of promises written on yellow paper
with blood from Katipunero wrists, men and women
who changed their last names from Du-ku-we to Es-co-bar
to escape
only to find themselves
in
These times are easy
on my feet and make yelling questions effortless.
Redemption— or the times I spent with my birth family
the first and second times
and heard my language and dialect
in the form of slurred Waray cries and proud begging and
in wide eyes,
sometimes pointed down
when I looked back. pieces of me were left there,
in the torn nike t-shirts and coca-cola advertisements
in Tagalog,
in the folgers breakfast for four year olds,
in the furious fight to find fish,
in trafficking attempts disguised as modeling jobs
in the poorest provinces.
and pieces were found here
in the diverse campus of
not always offered every semester,
in the literature that is unsearchable online and unknowable at borders
or barnes & nobles,
in the megaphoned fists of young students informed
of more than one way to absorb
the world.
These times are hard
on my eyes and the questions keep me awake at night.
[does she know shame]
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