The Good Men Project

Kamayan

the Editors

for Mom home is ghost eaten by hand four
fingers act as shovel and scoop van Gogh
brushstrokes on a bamboo plate she
thumbs Brian duck egg shrimp paste
synagogue and flakes a smoke bang goose
into a greasy jewel pushes the Pearl
into my mouth amen the proper method of
preparing a milk fish fry in the garage
is to not stink up the whole house
it’s perfuse oils migrate in air
proliferate and furniture in pores hole
up and porous surfaces smells resurface
haunt the heart
mom shrouds an old button-down over my
face I experience low lows ghost for the
first time taste the fish head of
yesteryear its sunken eyes fogged with
milky lipids cyka slick hands swarmed
this ruined face peeled the delicate
meat from wisps of bone amen
like a sculptor who wets her fingers we
seasoned ours and fish sauce and vinegar
mixing garlic and sealing Mobilio fusing
stink and stink what communion not
unlike my blood in a world without
airplane and diaspora this body
hypothetical amen
instead bellied monument of regret a
Museum of everything tongue struck
tongue don’t leave home the way the body
do so long as you keep it fed fattened
with ghosts offered by mother’s hand to
my mouth amen one day there won’t be
hands to gift the ghost without mom what
percent ghost is home one day what
percent fraud am i one day no hands to
guide mine when I’m for my own safety
prohibited from Paco or the shanties
where mom grew up without mom to Paco
I’m just interloper into America a cloud
of petits and de vinegar this half blood
body either a threat or a prayer
depending on who’s looking Amen when
mom’s hands weren’t feeding me it was
mine
shoveling waste into waste but when
prayer and eating are your hands main
activity the idea behind them mixes so
with every bite I meant to say thank you
God amen and molla said please note not
my direct blood Lola but one through
marriage when they’re so few you all
surrounding elders family the
same way last Wolves heard and Lola said
I must eat only American food Filipino
food can’t make you fat but Lola
what about mounds of white rice and
grilled pork butt ain’t fattening which
part this body not monument honoring
anyhow knob a boy no joke dark matter
both invisible and 85% of all mass in
the universe this body the same I’m
heavier than you think every step
forward curdles Boulder to soil every
Koster’s ghost from grave as twister
kicked up in this dream I have my brown
meat suspended and cool white gel an
aspect knifed onto toast not Ella gory
of being spread too thin but palpable
anxiety of knowing someone only through
smearing even God some dirt smudged
bodies into being even God spoke light
unmixed it from hand even God expects
our palms ruddy collision to resemble
prayer even God makes bodies push them
in two worlds amen everlasting

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