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Diaspora Sonnet 25

The planet pulls our bodies through
the year. Delivers us, headlong,

into the tears in currents. The ebbs
and flows of blood in chambers,

bombastic and flooded with unremembered
names. Neighbors bourne feet first

through their door arches.
Down the corridors, lonesome

and lost. Their voices suture
the silence behind them and

the little song pulsing its staccato 
cannot explain the day and the day

and the day, like an arm and then 
another pulled through a sleeve.

Oliver de la Paz is the author of five poetry collections, including Boy in the Labyrinth (University of Akron Press, 2019). He is a founding member of Kundiman, and will be the Guest Editor for Poem-a-Day in October 2019.

About Oliver de la Paz

Occasion

Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month

Themes

Audio

Body

Mourning

About this Poem

“As part of a monthly Kundiman postcard writing exchange I started penning small sonnets on the backs of postcards and sending them to participating Kundiman fellows, faculty, and staff. This particular poem is based on a story a relative had told me about a loved one who had passed away and whose body was carried over the threshold of her apartment somewhat unceremoniously. I wanted to write a memorial of sorts but also acknowledge the indifference of the residents in the apartment complex where she was found.”
—Oliver de la Paz

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More by this poet

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

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Diaspora Sonnet 25

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