The Unmentionables at the Fish Market

Anger undrenched by an ocean
of distance, you call
to bitch about baranguay
captains and the cousins
who complained, "grandmother's
coffin is the wrong size."
Then in the next breath,
"fire ants will bite your
daughter's feet as she climbs",
and I wonder: just who
allows her to climb the mango
trees?

These are calls that
only my purlieu can soothe,
these tides (and cigs) that
hypnotize a mountain goat
such as I. I drive redlined,
punch a hole in the wind,
reach the shore and stay all day,
buy ice milk from
toothless street vendors, and
wonder how the taste on the
spoon was so pale - how it got
to be this way.

My ribs poke at my tee shirt,
my thoughts jab at my mind
as another call comes from
old Luzon, ire rising from
a far horizon as two people,
wizened raisins, sway on
gravel in a parking lot
to the music of Teresa Teng,
a national idol, dead of
asthma, at 33, far from home.
They move not as lovers but
as one. Cheap netting covers
the man's head, his forehead
and scalp blank with age, a perfect
place for the midnight blue and
white sun of the Kuomintang.

It is a moment, privy to me,
its grace descending like a fog.
The woman in his arms becomes
youthful, small steps go from mincing
to girlish and I wonder if he has
ever had to leave her.

My guidebook does not list the
this fish market; its smells
considered unmentionable,
yet it fascinates to watch
the fishing skiffs bob in the waters,
trying to reach safe
harbor before the sun does.

Folk song notes float through
the air like twilight. The singer
is fourteen, singing "I Am A Rock"
in syllable-timed English.
My pocket yields a coin; coin
clinks in the can; my loneliness
absolved. When my clothes
reek of smoke and gutted
fish, when the early
evening wind
snaps kitestrings,
when the dancers have
shut their stall and
the sky darkens with all
the colors of longing
then I go, leaving the
stench of seafood
behind for the quiet
of empty rooms
and bare feet on
cold hard tiles.