Tanuan, Leyte, Philippines

November 8, 2013
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if the winds snatch our closets again

don me in the singing of zinc roofs

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the night howl of stray cats in rain

after typhoon nothing is left unwet

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even the church’s cracking roof

coconuts snap open with salt

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cloak me in the remains of my mama’s

dissertation a drowned laptop years of research

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swallowed by the flood of her bedroom

make me an altar of the photos

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we salvaged from sea its water lines a crown

above my lolo’s wiggling ears

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once – we identified our dead’s bloated bodies

only by the tattered clothing they drowned in

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o skirt of forgotten match sticks

garland of damp bedding –

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cloak our arms in moth wings

send down the gowns

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worthy of burial

for the unnamed

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