for Lola Fely
It would’ve been a week before Valentine’s
when my mother was conceived
when red roses were replaced with
bombs and Japan and America and the Philippines
all crashing in communion
between Lola’s womb and the choice
of my mother’s spirit to consecrate this vessel
***
After her husband left she emerged into the light
and wondered where the sun had gone
blood orange behind an ashen fog of
bomb wisps and shell droppings flittering snow
her tresses catching dust and gunpowder flakes
Her man had gone underground uncertain of his return
This was how the world had fallen apart
the crumbling old pages of an ancient book
we no longer possessed the language
to comprehend
***
Lola was in a bedroom at home
Her childhood home or her husband’s home
– I cannot remember what Lola told me
though I was also there inside my mother’s egg
waiting to be born
***
Children were birthed at home
not because of choice
but because hospitals had been bombed
My mother did not slide out easily as Lola clenched her fists
dripping feathers and sweat
with ropes of cloth tied
to the corners of the bed
She never forgot the pain (as women are otherwise told)
and never forgot the restless knocking
of the bamboo fountain outside each little bucket filled
with water and then toppled and released
wood against wood knocking endlessly through the night
my mother’s newborn screams reflected in the knocking of
wood against wood while the spirits of her aunts
swirled and echoed in the knocking of
wood against wood they who had been hung
by their ankles
They had just arrived
relaxing inside the blue light
only to be pulled back from the depths
through their niece’s arrival
to experience war
all. over. again.
***
They would be she and she would be they
but even she would accomplish what they never could
bewitching the hearts of Japanese soldiers who
instead of
tossing her delicate little body into the air
and catching her on their bayonets
would be mesmerized by her baby eyes and baby cheeks and baby giggles
These same cretins in uniform would want nothing more
but to tickle her cheeks and say
Such a pretty baby
Her aunts with their long temptress tresses
could not have done what she did
Those same degenerates of the Imperial Army
hung them by their slender ankles to the trees
their hair cascading down onyx waterfalls
until their souls would finally make their escape
into hers into mine
