for my great uncles
Mamerto, Nicasio, Prudenci Llanes
who were hanged by the U.S. military
for their armed resistance against
the American occupation of the Philippines
Who am I? I
slide my body Into
your body all my weight
yours I even place the gnawed
peach pits of my ankles
into your ankles
I’m the rain
gathering in your right ear
I’m the cold roar of the storm
in the black burning trees
in the hills’ cedars It’s a new
season for them to hang
heads from gibbets and magnolias
and not once examine
the blue light’s angle off these
dark eyes off every inch
of the hand dragged they say
by the hooves out of the shadows
to the edge of a road Afraid Yes
I’m so afraid On the Day of All Souls
I breeze back
to the churches of the living
I follow the hymns
to the deep caves
and feel with my fingers for the secrets
scrawled with great care on their walls
Grief Haunting Don’t the dead
also long to be touched in the dark
When boys come to shove
the small of my back and make me swing
so slightly
as if they could scare off the other ghosts
to their astonishment
touch is a kindness
and a failure
But who will say? Even if someone cuts me down
there will always be another with arms wide open
to say: here it is Our communion
of silence and lies Left here long enough
even the mushrooms in time
will take me in their double thousand
microscopic mouths
