Trove
When entering my home,
in every room, there will be
stuff that has no name for itself
I call the room in the basement, our trove
because it’s where the mysteries stay
Pens pursed from the hotel rooms
that wrote the letters in prayer
Clothes never sent in the balikbayan
reminding you of how you forget
Pictures with boys whose names I came
to know by their funerals and epitaphs
Children’s books with a broken spine
whose pages try so hard to turn
Tomato boxes that treasure us
more than we care to do ourselves
Sungka stones scatter at the bottom
of boxes of newspapers from the 80s
In your struggle to make sense of this stuff
the day will end and you will have sorted nothing
The furnace breathes in the winter
and one day, this house will burn
everything will catch in its flames
I hope fire opens the boxes wide enough
so that the mysteries rise in its heat and
for the fire to sort all of our stuff in its ashes
Excerpt from “My Mother’s Dream (or Driftwood”)
American dreams are fish
in an ocean full of driftwood.
And all of it are remnants of a ship.
The vessel that carries cramped
families, chosen to cross the waters.
They jumped off that ship and swam.
Paddled - even when ashore because
they fight with breathing. She emerged
from the sunshine, a fishermen sailing
into white water, casting her lines in hopes of catching a dream
Or two.
Or three.
However many it takes for her fight to feel asleep.
Flipside
Flip (n.):
1. an athletic movement in which someone jumps in the air and rolls forward or backward
a. into shadow
b. into face
c. into resistance
2. to change from one state, position, subject, etc., to another
a. savage to
b. monkey to
c. little brown brother to
d. soldiers to
e. theirs
3. the B-side of a record; the unimportant side
a. in which we dance on
b. in which we sing to
c. in which we collect the dust from
4. reverse
a. a story; a narrative
b. truth of our arrival
c. history of our conditions
5. to buy and renovate (real estate) to quickly resell at a higher price
a. a body to forget
b. tongues to feel shame
6. to toss as to turn in the air
a. toss our words
i. in the pot until they dissolve
ii. into the fissures of arrival
b. toss the fight from our fist in the air
i. until it’s blown away
ii. until it’s wind
iii. until it’s polluted
7. (slang) to lose one's mind or composure – often used with out
a. flip out!
8. slang term for Filipino-Americans
a. reclaim
b. we flipping back
i. this be the Flip Side
Edsel Engalla, Jr. (he/him) is a Filipino American based in his hometown of Jersey City, New Jersey. A recent graduate from Rutgers University with a B.A. in English, he hopes to begin taking action in serving his local community. Identifying as a “sometimes writer,” he writes fiction and poetry that explores the assimilation of Filipinx in the U.S. and its reconciliation with pre-colonial traditions. When he’s not writing, he’s either taking naps with his Shiba Inu, reading a book by a fellow Asian American, or listening to hip-hop.