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Off Rampart
for MS
I.
This is a moment she needs.
The dry air telling her that once again
it is season to wash your face in
the morning
the afternoon
and night.
She misses the humidity of Mandaue
now in this place
this street
this alley
this place that had not welcomed any of them from the start.
II.
This is not the weather she arrived to -- united stets.
Then - was a november
bright
sweet.
Eternal novembers in the many
"when I first came to this country" essays
she had written every year till 6th grade at Rosemont Elem.
III.
With sunken bones and stilted english
she took a second look at him
wanting to forgive him
for beating her mother.
this father who was a mechanic
this father who was a tile layer
and sometimes the father
who did nothing but stare out a window
in the corner of the house
looking for more
than this
corner plot,
corner street.
IV.
The daughter is home again.
He does not know that she
dances naked before countless men.
Soap their backs and feed them with
her oohs and ahhs.
In her head, conversations with non men:
How interesting your life must be.
When she goes home she changes the color of her nails
different colors after different men
lining up the bottles against her window sill.
She talks about creating those smart looking
broken glass floors she had seen in mansions and
private rooms.
>From these crushed
manicure bottles
mixtures of red, blue, green.
How bright the broken patterns would look.
Different colors of different days, men
different angles forming a walkway
leading to the back door that
opens into an alley
Bento wey the old men in the corner call it.
V.
There is a picture of a white waitress
from the now gone 6th Street Sambo's eatery
in his dresser.
He is smiling beside her
holding a menu.
Two seconds before the picture was taken
she had looked at him
curiously
after
a comment he made:
It is so interesting you are serving me,
I am in America.
Originally published on the web by LA Culture Net
Editor: Diep Tran
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