“If You Want to Know Where I’m Really From, I’ll Tell You”
Maria Bolaños
Artist Statement: This poem is constantly in motion, embodying the life of movement and migration I inherited from a family history shaped by colonialism. It's a poem with joy at its center and sadness at its edges; and it's inspired by my father, uncles, and grandfathers -- the men who have ventured out to far-flung places for decades at a time, and how it feels when these men, no matter how briefly, come home.
I come from a universe where the men have beer and gasoline in their veins
and swagger around as if always on the verge of spontaneously combusting.
The backs of their hands are the deep cracked leather of a steering wheel
tanned by the long afternoon. When the sun sinks down behind the anarchy
of buildings, a thousand new suns floodlight up, selling Bench or Jollibee or
the latest movie. I marvel at how they navigate this galaxy, the spiral-armed
barangay networks. Each jeepney is a rocket to the moon, fins and flags
streaming, chrome-skinned and tattooed with dragons & eagles & tigers &
the Virgin Mary. The sari sari storefronts are still open at this hour,
part business part backyard, where the elderly sit watching dramas unfold
on small TVs resting on the counter, and the young ones holler around on
their quicker knees. The scents of rotisserie chicken and fried fishballs
reach my passenger window. Our rosary hangs on the rearview mirror,
beads catching the twinkle off streetlamps. At every bump in the road
Jesus is a spaceman doing ollies in the air for us; and I brace myself
against the handle like I’ll go to hell for that joke, but I inherited my kulit
from these men who scatter like ashes like stars across darkness,
zigzagging their shine through Manila traffic out to California, to New
York, to Saudi; out where young men go and become old men. I count down
turns in roads with the names of soldiers & saints & American states &
I’m gazing out at myself, visible only once every few years, wingtip
blink of memory or ball of fire shedding my selves again, again. Here
our van growls upon re-entry into the driveway. The dog is leashed up
beyond the iron gate and the laundry on the line waves us in, a collection
of flags in celebration. We spill out like a sigh where we touch down to earth,
bellies full of food, thoughts already on the mattress on the cool tile floor,
the swaying fan’s lullaby hum. On the wall, a butiki defies gravity, eyes me
a moment, then ultimately moves on, one traveler understanding another.
Maria Bolaños (she/her/they) is a Filipina-American poet living on stolen Tongva/Gabrielino land known as Los Angeles, California. She is the General Editor for Marías at Sampaguitas literary magazine and is committed to building spaces to nurture and showcase Filipinxao literature as well as Black, Indigenous, and POC literature. She is a 2021 Best of Net nominee, and her writing has been featured in Touchstone, Cut Fruit Collective, Antigone, CP Quarterly, and the International Examiner, among others. Instagram: @mariabeewrites.