In economy class
To escape an unkind economy that has given my father cause
To say goodbye to me that day in the airport
With a list of pasalubongs written on the back of a tape receipt.
I have heard the language of a people
Who look at me strangely still
Unless I open my mouth and in front of them
Do an impromptu speech - a sentence or two perfectly accented.
The great performance of my daily life now.
I have eaten meals with so much leftover it can feed a family back home.
(But how do you say take home? Take out? Bring out? To go?)
Back where I am from there are no leftovers.
We eat everything.
We believe everything, too.
We believe in heroes until they tell us they are actually foes.
We detested foes until they are given hero's burials.
We believe in truths about our nation's character
that we will believe to be lies if you tell us to.
A faith like a child's.
We believe in a child-god and we dance on the streets for him.
I have driven the freeways here and you cannot dance on them.
There are many traffic signs but none that say
I can dance for my child-god.
So I obey
Like what my father used to tell me.
Before he died of cancer and was buried as my hero.
I'm wild again, beguiled again
A whimpering, simpering child again
Bewitched, bothered and bewildered, am I
He used to sing that song to me.
[Written in Lake Tahoe, Nov 13 2016, for the Filipino overseas and for Ed]
