Archipelagic
Not vinegar. Not acid. Not
sugarcane pressed to mortar by
fist, but salt: salt, the home taste; salt,
the tide; salt, the blood. Not Holy
Ghost, but a saint of coral come
to life in the night crossing a
field of brambles and thorns, the camps
of pirates beat back to the bay
with hornets. Not Santo Niño.
And not a belt of storms, but this:
girls singing, an avocado
in each open palm, courting doves;
a moth drawn to the light of our
room you take to be your father.
Copyright © 2014 by R. A. Villanueva. Used with permission of the author.
“What to say when someone asks where home is? Especially when ‘home’ for you can mean the Philippines—somewhere you haven’t lived? When you were born a hemisphere away, but have inherited its faiths and myths, its capacity for awe? You give yourself permission to feel at home in your blood; you try to invent a new language for your answer.”
—R. A. Villanueva
R. A. Villanueva
R. A. Villanueva is the author of Reliquaria (University of Nebraska Press, 2014).