ESL or You Weren't Here. Aldrin Valdez

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СКАЧАТЬ protruding

      from my mouth in the first sentence

      I ever read out loud in Mrs. Modesta’s English class.

       anim

      Christopher & I sit in the front row

      He is my best friend.

      We fondle each other and no one sees.

      Twolittlebaklas

      in white & navy blue.

      The girls on the other side

      are always laughing.

      I tried to speak

      to Jasmine once but her friends taunted me because they thought

      I had a crush on her and because my name resembles the name

      Aladdin.

       pito

      When asked to do the sign of the cross in Bible class

      I let my hand spider from my forehead to my chest

      then to my shoulders.

      I am wrong.

      Out of nervousness

      I have used my left hand.

      I am asked to repeat.

      When we aren’t praying, we are drawing

      images of Jesus Christ.

      Mine is a man in a mandorla

      radiating stars & ribbons of light.

      Or we’re making lists of who has talked in class while the teacher is out of the room.

       Ma’am! Ma’am!

      We would rush to her

      tattling the names of classmates.

       walo

      Christopher and I love to sing

      Mariah Carey’s Without You.

      Christopher says over the phone that he has never sounded so good

      as he does now.

      I agree with him.

      His voice has the motion of a wilting

      gumamela shaking

      under the breath of a kambing.

      I, on the other hand, when I get home from school, am an exceptional singer.

      I singeverywhere.

      Into the electric fan.

      In the bathroom with the tabo in my hand.

      In front of a gathering of neighbors outside during brownouts.

      I sing for attention and the more I get the more I sing.

      My Tita Alice and I sing with my Ates and Kuya.

      She stations us on top of tables and couches.

      Bedsheets drape our bodies. When she points to each of us,

      we emerge like caryatids from the sheets

      as Mariah

      & Whitney

      & Celine,

      the fabric cascading to our furniture-turned-stages.

       siyam

      Mga kapatid ko say

      I amKSP:Kulang Sa Pansin.

      When they’re really trying

      to make the pikon in me

      come out they say

      I amKSP:Kulangot Sa Pader.

      And I get flustered—

      I am not lacking attention!

      I am not a booger on the wall!

      I am a huffed-up balloon of Tagalog curses—

      which I promised

      to Lord

      Jesus Christ

      I would

      never,

      ever

      say

      again

      if he would just please save my family and me from hell?

      A never-ending

      litany

      of saviors, saints, & the prospective saved

      lulls me to sleep each night like a pacifier.

       sampu

      But it is Nanay who rescues me

      from the tukso of my Kuya and Ates.

      Nanay is dilaw ng manga in an asul morning.

      The rustling of the plastic bag she unfurls

      is also the wrinkled, brown skin

      of her hand as she offers me a mango.

      I have missed dinner and she wakes me up now

      and takes me outside where it is so blue

      even the air seems colored-in

      & the yellow of the mango hums in this blue.

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