Dalaga

Tita, I’ll translate the signs for you.

The price of infinity is

Nine-twenty-six (with a

Gas-station tenth of a cent)

At certain retailers, and depending

On where you go, it comes

a few things: a stick of

Likas Papaya, fair and lovely;

A coat-hanger with velveteen

Grips from the old

T.V. sales that you

Said manong likes;

A CD-ROM of Neon Genesis Evangelion

(subbed) with the theme song still

Intact; a blue business card

For your brethren back on the mainland.

A bundle deal, —

It comes with a

Few things: Pseudo-American Cash

And thrice-said prayers for pag-ibig;

Japanese Cherry-bomb

Blossom soap; donated

Hair tied taut with a

Mango-patterned scrunchie.

It comes with a few more

Things: lovely creatures

That keep their faces clean, with guma-

Mela tucked behind their ears;

A first-edition life kept inside a coat, fluctuating

Between scowling and smiling, depending

on location (or rather, story); the permission to

Destroy the Western world as a whole.

Tita, will I live so long?

In the sea, the girls seem pink —

So rawly made and soft,

All clear foreheads and minimal adipose —

Straightened like fingers,

Bound like tiny feet,

Fingers gripped and crossed

Like letters and wishes in

Scarlet-hued envelopes

On New Year. And then — when you tell

Me about yung babae, I imagine them

all carried, vast and far,

Buried in some old,

Ugly cradle, woven carefully from silk

And scraped-blue moonlight.

They are not like me.

I am far away.

Tita, I have

everything I need.

But I

Am not

Yet old

Enough to

Bless you.