Your name sat there
like the rotting meat
of a dead cow.
Mother cooked
nilagang baka
for lunch. I ate
two bowls of
what came
rushing
through
my mouth
as I tried to poke my throat with my dirty finger (a lullaby?),
as I screamed out, “Yes ma, I already fed the toilet!”
I already fed that baby whale, all ceramic and white like its
mother. Sometimes, I’d hear it gurgling, calling out your
name, “Dada!” It would call out your name and I would
think that it was choking, and I would smile thinking
how maybe it would save itself by dying, (maybe it
would save me) by flushing out your name,
flushing out that dead cow
peeking through the slits
of my door, waiting
for cold sheets,
for damp midnight,
for the moon
as it lit
the screen
of our last
full show
for the rain
as it jumped
off its seat to bathe me,
to wash your smell off me,
to wash your dead—dead cow smell off me.
