Chain Migration II: On Negations and Substitutions

Oliver de la Paz

Not the tamarind. But instead
lemon, though sometimes lime.
Not nipa mats on floors for beds
but rather frames that chime

when running hands through oak spindles.
Never your thickest coat
for winter. Parkas, a must! Kin
sends discards, clothes to float

you through the season. No soy sauce?
No problem! Worcestershire
salts the tongue in equivalence.
No coconut vinegar?

Sometimes white will do. Its sour
flavor pushes us through
the recipe. Sometimes it’s our
expectations we screw

into a tighter face. Sometimes
what home is…isn’t that.
Adjust the thermostat to nine
degrees past. Habitats

don’t bend to our aftermaths. No.
There are, instead, some swaps—
a roof over our heads. And now?
A self to lose? A trap?

The gamble of the recipe
is salt and sweat, the wrong
of it. The parts necessitate
a flavor test. Too strong?

Then let’s behave, hide our features—
distrust the place and stare
long into the TV’s ether.
Lose words into the air.

Reprinted from The Diaspora Sonnets by Oliver de la Paz. Copyright © 2023 by Oliver de la Paz. Used with permission of the publisher, Liveright Publishing Corporation, a division of W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. All rights reserved.

When Benny Agbayani Became a Met

my ancestors rose and cheered.
From their ancient graves,

pairs of arms rose to make the wave.
Every burial site, a stadium and,

for every one of his at-bats
Mayon Volcano spat a puff of smoke

visible for miles. Children in T-shirts
with the number 50, hand-scrawled by Sharpies

Oliver de la Paz

2024

Diaspora Sonnet at the Feeders Before the Freeze

I’m getting cold and the trees have darkened
into a tobacco-colored stain. Birds

cease calling each other—no more ears
in the branches. I haven’t slept for two nights

because their silence skewers everything.
My thoughts cannot be broken. The depths

of my thinking sink me. I hold firm
despite the rain, its dissolution.

There are no sparrows or chickadees, they
no longer fling back their heads, exalted.

Where have they gone? The birds and the finery
of their throats? Their gratitude for seed and suet?

Oliver de la Paz

2023

Diaspora Sonnet Imagining My Father’s Uncertainty and Nothing Else

On condition of anonymity
we are conditioned by antonyms. There,

the thing made—villainous and ill-tempered.
Repulsive. We’re made beasts. Formed from many

scales. How does one love a thing that loves nothing?
Made from the wrack and wreck of you—image

of you, and sent by you to fight your fights,
thus we are all parts and parts. Hibernal

and truant, until your remembrances
have mislaid all the best of you into

us. Tilt our heads, turned this way and that, see
all our old stitching come undone. Our sons—

Oliver de la Paz

2023

Poems

Chain Migration II: On Negations and Substitutions

More by this poet

When Benny Agbayani Became a Met

Diaspora Sonnet at the Feeders Before the Freeze

Diaspora Sonnet Imagining My Father’s Uncertainty and Nothing Else

Poems

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Chain Migration II: On Negations and Substitutions

More by this poet

When Benny Agbayani Became a Met

Diaspora Sonnet at the Feeders Before the Freeze

Diaspora Sonnet Imagining My Father’s Uncertainty and Nothing Else

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