We were not prepared for it—
America, the land cut like a massive slab
of steak. Our mother did not sit us down
to explain, and nothing was said
over the black coffee and rice
soup at mealtimes. My siblings and I approached
our inevitable leaving with numb
acceptance, as people do under martial law.
Days prior to the date, things disappeared
in the house: the display cabinet taken away by an aunt,
the wedding gift china wares in it sold, except for the blue plates
and swan-shaped bowls that would not survive the journey.
The rice bin was given to a family friend; knives
to Uncle Leo; school uniforms, cousins; roosters divided
among the men; floral fabrics for the women; dried
mangoes and stale squid candies for the neighborhood
children; a twin bed transported upstairs
for my sister staying to complete college.
That late July morning, the jeepney arrived,
as hired, the sun held dominion over the blinding sky,
a zephyr funneled through the narrowing streets
of Manila. The steady procession of
well-wishers in our house did not halt,
my father handing out pesos
as if he was paying for our safe passage.
Surrounded by luggage and boxes huge
as baby elephants, we were each given
a dollar bill, our firsts, as the jeepney drove off
to take us to the airport, leaving behind a throng
of onlookers waving violently, and a tearful, older sister
who, years later, would reenact this disappearing act,
this fading scene of a rooster-lined road of this
cockfighting, banana tree-lush town speeding away,
lost in the kinetic gray cement and dark smoke of exhaust.
Joseph O. Legaspi