The river didn’t used to be this close to the laughing house; one day, the river started to stretch itself wider and wider. The house started to throw stones, and cough up so much dust. Tickled by its own dust, it giggled and it shook. The goats knocked over trees with their hooves and the flat tops of their heads; they fed upon the roots until the trees all withered and the soil gave way underfoot. Even the dragonflies ate grass blades, one by one. The river, the house, the goats, the dragonflies, they did these things much to the old mothers’ dismay, because the mermaid wanted to see the face of the godless, handsome man who lived inside the laughing house.

GARDEN

GARDEN

This is the story I was told: she doesn’t remember when the yellow house was new, when the backyard, formerly a farmer’s plot, was a mess of thorns and weeds. She doesn’t remember when the first rains fell in autumn, when the weeds grew a grown-up’s waist high. She doesn’t remember how the soil was so rich, how the worms were so juicy, wriggling, and fat. She doesn’t remember how the pechay just grew there, first tiny leaflings, delicate stalks. She doesn’t remember, but the pechay grew hearty, its stalks thick and fibrous, leaves dark green and curly. She watched Mama pull those pechay right out of the earth; guisado, sinigang, nilaga bulalo.

This is what I remember: she cleared away the weeds and thorns, mulched and composted lemon tree branches. She helped lay down brick, and riverine pebbles. She dug up the earth, though decades had passed, the yellow house faded and painted anew. She dug up the earth, warm under her nails, still wriggling and juicy with worms. She planted tomatoes, parsley, and squash. She planted eggplant and yellow bell peppers. So long ago, Mama withered away, a skeleton, dementia-stricken. But she planted, and the tomatoes grew to her waist, beside deep pink rosebushes, blooming, full.

ESTUARY

ESTUARY

Here, you seek solace, gliding in your vessel, sinew pulling skins taut over its cedar skeleton, the quickest blade slicing still water. Spear-fishing the silver current, your spine perpendicular to the cloudless sky. With the longest strokes, you surge into the river’s mouth. For this, you know, there is no song.

Here, you coax the heat of your body into this cool water, and soon after, how salt crystallizes upon your shoulders. This quiet portent, slick, translucent sea kelp, patient buoys spilling tadpoles from their ruptured pods.