FORMAL ESSAYS
The Last Maria Clara The Poem She Wrote
PERSONAL ESSAYS
For Ages Three and Up Bloody Thoughts Fingerlings
POEMS
Siren
Loss
Agathisms
Marilyn
PUBLISHED WORKS
Everything That Goes With IT
Serving Suggestion
J109 ARTICLES
General Education-cum-"Pick the Flick" Chopping the Writer's Block
I know my own anatomy,
Foremost, the brain
Synchronizing a network of nerves;
Then the heart's tributaries, each vein
A conduit for the saline brew
That cools, and warms, and serves
The cell-foods I burn up or store.
Then the locomotor crew
Showing that I look, I run and walk,
Showing, head to toes, I move,
I hunger, I talk,
Showing I anger and I love.
This is my body,
Built for these and more,
More, much more;
While dozing or peeling the eggs or
Scraping the fish scales,
I recall when Sebia brought down
The red, red roses from the hills
And I turned into a flower.
And when the Ormoc cyclone
Scrounged Merlie's father
Her brother and his wife
And three children-the wind was a knife
And for days my body
Was wind, mud, and sucking water.
And Merlie?-her heart was putty
Her bones, stone.
My body is more
As when Granddaughter
Comes up the steps from school,
And I turn into the door
Letting her in; her good
Hunger for the ready food
Prickles my belly
And I become her hunger,
I become the dewy cool
Drink, the bread and golden jelly.
Anatomy, yes, but deep
And far as time
And all the lost places
I become in sleep,
Body as rhythm and rhyme,
Body as the paths and mazes
I imagine bathed in light-
My anatomy is hymn, sob, psalm,
And I become
The poem I write.
