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—

they see the made thing we have become, hurt
to flinching. The song of skin, soon unsung.

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

You Must Lift Your Son’s Languid Body

off the couch, tuck him into whatever
soft breach of the covers he can needle

into. You must lift your own tired self
beyond the threshold of the door

and snuff each candle till the smoke
writes the hours into the quiet house.

Oliver de la Paz

2023

Poems

Diaspora Sonnet Imagining My Father’s Uncertainty and Nothing Else

More by this poet

When Benny Agbayani Became a Met

Diaspora Sonnet at the Feeders Before the Freeze

You Must Lift Your Son’s Languid Body

Poems

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Diaspora Sonnet Imagining My Father’s Uncertainty and Nothing Else

More by this poet

When Benny Agbayani Became a Met

Diaspora Sonnet at the Feeders Before the Freeze

You Must Lift Your Son’s Languid Body

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