Confessional, and: Egg Brooding

Abstract

Confessional, and: Egg Brooding Sam Roxas-Chua (bio) Confessional Where I once took off my dressand drank sweet wine mixed with aloe. Where our fingers stretched the small mouthsof rattan—tongues licking each other’s lips like eelsborn at the orange hour. Afternoons where I bled for a weekfrom your stubble. It was there I saw revisions of heaven and hell,prayer and trespass leaking a liquid pearl into Andromedaand her buoyant stars. [End Page 91] Egg Brooding An octopus, miles deep in a baycovers her eggs for four years,I don’t know of such dedicationfrom anything living. And in that four years I’ve emptiedmany of your dress pocketslooking for a letter you saidyou would leave me. I go through dresses made of pineapplethreads, silk blouses you’ve stitchedin the dark to pay for milk powder,fortune noodles, and century eggs. On my first birthday,you bit my lower lipso you would have a storyto tell me about not being yours— how I came out of a womanwho was nineteen in the Philippines.And how she left me in the cradleof a tree limb, unwrapped. You wanted that story to hemmy lips together, not to ask questionsabout my birthmarks, my Chinesecousins, my made up languages sung during a typhoon. Never to askwhy nests would fall when we walkedthrough the jungle to beat a papayawith cudgels of chants. [End Page 92] Never to ask about my aversionto uncles, butchers, and albularioswho saw lights beam out of my handsat the midnight market. At the midnight market, how you heldmy wrist tight when we passedby the alligator crabs. How you saidsomething under your breath about the color blue. And after you boughtthe carob root from the no-eyed man,wearing no-shirt, he said goto the Capilla de dos luces. And you said, Yes. We headed for the firefly chapel,past Aling Girly’s Sari-Sari store,past the slut-house where you foundmy birthfather, Jose. And how he bit your lip to leave me a story about him.And how you washed your mouthwith good-smell soapsgifted on your wedding day. And on your wedding day, the monsoonrain arrived, unexpected.And how in that chapel lived a priestwho was once your husband. You never questioned the haloor the white sampaguitashe coughed up when you both burnedtrash under the mango tree for a blessing. [End Page 93] That same tree where you asked a dark godfor a potion so men would fall in love with you.How that red-eared god rolled his tongueinto your belly as payment, and how you heard those babiesin the garden. Those red-eared babieswho smelled like soot and hoof;how their hands, like octopus ferns left tiny bruisesin the shape of small eggs. And howin the chapel they glowed in silence.Mother, why does walking hurt my hands? [End Page 94] Sam Roxas-Chua Sam Roxas-Chua is the author of Fawn Language (2014). His work has been published in Narrative, december Magazine and other journals. Roxas-Chua was the winner of the Missouri Review’s 7th Annual Audio Competition in Poetry. He holds an MFA from Pacific University and lives in Eugene, Oregon. Visit his website at samroxaschua.com Copyright © 2016 University of Wisconsin Board of Regents