Diwata

Bodies disassembled in church courtyards, mango blossom boughs knotted, hewn from roots with dull blades. The moon was blood, and sometimes she’d close her eyes. Sometimes so much poetry, prayers on the parched lips of dying men, forced her to hide. Even the barest trees were always good for hiding, and solitary herons’ wings swift slicing through cloud. How they’d lacerate sky, and how sky bled, bending in arcs and wisps after the bombs fell. The stillness terrified us all. And those very veiled women who prayed with rose-scented rosaries opened their legs for so little rice and fish. Yes, this, I saw. And with my own eyes, this I see still.