“Pinay, Household Service Worker” by Emeniano Acain Somoza, Jr.

(Because nothing will prepare you for the sorrow of watching a shadow swallow the heart of your trembling dream.)

Tell me how this hearting
can leave you shaking
each time you see her:

culture-scar(r)ed

in the shade of that balding
desert tree watching her child
play bang-bang

bang-bang…

(You know, park trees are thespians, too, because they know they are watched, and that old guy over there has perfect timing. They have no patriotic sense, yet you know how they feel.

You just know.

How they feel.)

Dolorously delicate like a song in the desert – easily a far-cry
from your favorite Kill-Bill-femme-fatale –
she stands there, a hooded apparition, arms on chest.

Listen, just listen, to the ticking of those mournful, metronomic eyes –

are they counting the days to her uncertain freedom?
Dig, just dig, harder into those clenched fists –
are they keeping vows of secrecy or, pictures of home?

Tonight, at the dumpster, her final chore for the day
you will catch her there, she will act pleasantly surprised
while her masters dream of Qur’anic paradise…

Later, you will wake up to a recurring bad dream.

Deep before daybreak, a child screams bang-bang
bang-bang…