Janice Lobo Sapigao

 


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natay

dead, casualty
they were right here
this space
and they left
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

If every woman has a grave deep inside her,

Then mine is my father’s
A four-cornered stone that holds my focus
My last name etched in cement

 

Sapigao is not just a surname
It is the X on a map
Marking the territory of my father’s body in the cemetery

 

Every Father’s Day I follow it
This is where I celebrate
Every November for his birthday,
Every March when I can remember,
Where each visit is a prayer

 

A reminder that I am small against landscape
Standing above someone standing above me
My father is the bouquet of roses
Lillies, baby’s breath, the occasional potted plant

They say flowers are the scent of the dead

A potent temporary reminder

I have learned to love him

By holding tight and letting go

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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A part of this conversation is missing.

I swear that Gem, who might be one of my cousins, sent me a message about wanting to talk to my mother, whom I was upset with at the time he messaged me.

I swear that Gem asked for my mother’s contact information and needed it right away. I could sense the urgency, but I did not act in like manner.

I was too upset with my mom and a bit frightened at family members’ accessibility to make contact with me.

I only responded because I had seen on Gem’s Facebook profile many people expressing in Ilokano condolences and aches for his life. They presented me disbelief that Gem was gone. That Gem had passed away unexpectedly.

The message I sent was an attempt to make up for the fact that I had ignored his previous messages. I thought that if I’d replied he’d reply, too. I thought that I had misread the comments in Ilokano. I suddenly wanted to converse with him knowing I couldn’t.

What if the reason Gem messaged me correlated to his need to talk with my mother? What if it was my fault?

This is the same person:
My dad    My Father Son
This man       on the             tapes
Juan C. SapigaoJuan Sapicao
John SapiagostrangerJohn Sapigaoa man in love
JohnnyJuan Cariaga Sapigao
parentJohnny C. Sapigaothe deceasedimmigrantJuan Sapigao, Capt. U.S. Army J. Sapigoa
“Doddy” mahal
UncleSAPIGAO, U.S. Army


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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I don’t know for how long my dad lived in Saudi Arabia.

I have a lot of friends whose fathers worked there.

Some said they lived most of their lives without a father around.

I imagined their fatherlessness just as I imagined my own.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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Example: Father’s sacrifices

An example of this is “father’s sacrifices.” This means that the sacrifices belong to the father. This means that he has given up, offered – strategically, religiously, constantly. This means that he left and that his absence is a sacrifice. That when he sacrificed to go away, that I have sacrificed, too. I inherited his sacrifice. I duplicate sacrifice.

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An example of this is “father’s sacrifices.” This means that, without the apostrophe, one would also be saying “father is sacrifices.” The father, singular, has sacrificed many times, in the plural form. This means that more than one sacrifice has been made. That the father is an embodiment of multiple forms of sacrifice.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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dangadang

to struggle
good luck pronouncing
the curvatures of that which
strangles you

 

 
 
 
 
 


**

JANICE LOBO SAPIGAO is a poet, writer, and educator from San José, CA. Her first book of poetry about her mom, microchips for millions, critiques the Silicon Valley and its exploitation of immigrant women workers, and will be published this summer by Philippine American Writers and Artists (PAWA), Inc. She teaches English at San José City College and Skyline College. She loves hip hop, runs races occasionally, and plays with stuffed animals. Please visit her website: janicewrites.com

Marisol Limon Martinez


vdiss1

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

The minotaur suffers only from minor nightmares.

He dreams infant dragons devour him whole.

A silver sphere circling round and round a disc-shaped plate.

His eyes remain in a frozen state.

He is a form that travels with me.

I fly above the wilderness, and now that I am inside, I discover a
windowless house.

 
 
 
 

A marquee in the shape of a hexagon
Reads, “Solitude in darkness is the ideal inspiration for transformation”
 
 
When she leaves me, she says
I like boys better because they let me seek consolation in our naked
intimacies

 
 
Years before, I see the premonition
inside her silver door
 
 
A fine apartment in the oldest quarter of the city
The perfect place for a blackout
Her face was always a mess and my hair even worse
 
 
The bronze plates next to paintings read: Film, Pyramid, Man Cut Up,
Little Boy Dream, Aztec Tides, Monster Sky, Totems and World Belong,
Dim Lights
 
 
In the basement of my building, a bony figure sings my praises,
Proclaiming, “You are too strong for her and her upsets”
The only dreams are the sound dreams
Safe madness

You have 5000 years in that face

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Telegram:

Rose is dying. Stop.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

I send you a giftbasket.
Enclosed is a card.

Dear,
 
Enclosed are:Two apple tarts
Six strands of hair
One broken collar bone
My half-eaten thumb
 
 

With love,
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Face bones
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Stop talking! I’ll murder you!
I poisoned….
I’m poisoned
They poisoned me
The doctor’s here
I can’t write the check
I like your watch
I can’t go
I don’t
I have a long story
I can’t talk now
I’ll tell you the story later
Water please
Let me close
Let me out!
Grow water
Grow clothes
Grow close
Close, no, no, no
Close, close it up
Where are you going?
Go under
Under! Let me take off my
clothes, I doubt that
Who is she? Where am I going?
Take off my clothes
Let me take off my clothes
Let me take off my clothes
Let me take off my clothes
Where are the boys?
The boys!
Stop.
Tuae perceptiones non consonae veritati sunt

 
 
 
 
 

s
he is
she
and
me is
me
and
she is
me
and
when
you
walk
you
do it
most
force
full
y
down
stairs a
spiral
of mo
tion a
vessel
a
portal
in
disgui
se

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

vdiss2

 
 
 
 


Ed. Note: This work originally appeared in Martinez’s third book, Via Dissimulata, out now from Octopus Books. Reprinted with permission from the author and Octopus Books.

**


MARISOL LIMON MARTINEZ is a writer, musician, and visual artist based in New York City.

mlimonmartinezart.com

Poet, musician, and visual artist Marisol Limon Martinez’s third book, Via Dissimulata, uses the book as a frame & a portal: phrases and images echo, cycle, and stutter as the book-length poem accrues meanings both archetypal and personal—from the wilderness and the rebus to seven pills taken with water. Via Dissimulata explores ideas of the body, family, gender, culture, and speech, how these extend beyond dichotomies into permeable layering of ideas. It integrates visual studies for a five-panel painting that includes the text of the entire poem with poetry that uses the space of the page as another canvas, by turns minimalist and expressionist. Via Dissimulata tracks the tensions between the individual and the metaphysical, with poetry precise as it is harrowing, haunting as it is lovely.