Lantern Review: A Journal of Asian American Poetry
Issue 2 | Winter 2011

Sine del Sol burns to the ground:
fatherless tensibling grudges

tsinellas shuf shuf shuffle across aged wooden floors
timemeasured in sunrise and sunset

The ones left behind keep time in slow
tick tock the clocks not turning digital

send us some Tang, cigarettes, M&Ms
medicine, a change of the curtains

V.

Now we are too fat and fancy
standing in the palengke
flies hover over mounds of silvery anchovies
jackfruit is cracked open to reveal orange innards
durian sends pungent soursweet towards our nostrils
timemeasured in the melting of ice, the rotting of fruit.

I feel ashamed for the fat on my cheeks
try to disappear, but an American can be seen from miles away.
And Mom refuses
to hide her real Rolex
even when a watch is unnecessary.

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