33 third street las piñas village
they call it the white house
ailene tells me my friend
when her mom was alive
i played piano at her house
she was aljun & i was ina
her dad arranged for my visit
to the home i knew until 9
10 years later i’ve returned
new owner retired sea captain
rumored brother of ex-president
i see second story added
shutters replaced screens
white paint extended over
original blue trim i forget
i’m in las piñas & not america
a maid meets us at gate i glance
at surrounding fence i would climb
we enter the double doors where
i watched mark turn the knob
to exit while he was sleepwalking
replaced by a forest of vases my height
like passing crystals in bloomingdale’s
echoes of mark & me giggling & running
hidden under persian rugs covering
cement that gave our foreheads bukols
dirt fills pond drowning baby
mike’s gulps after being thrown
by visitor who said that’s how babies
learn to swim mark’s shadow fishes
under calamansi tree in a straw hat
windows outside no longer
jut out edge once pierced into
my head as i hid from my yaya
i massage my scalp expecting
to find blood on my hands again
is home like you remember ailene asks
i say yes to be polite the white house
was not my home i chiseled packed
stowed it with me across the pacific
preserved timeless beating
By Karina Fantillo
Biography:
Karina immigrated with her family at the age of 9 to San Francisco, where she learned about Philippine and American culture through folk dancing. Karina writes poems in lower case and minimizes punctuation as a stand against the infrastructures that deprived her of learning her native language and history in an American colony.
Karina’s poems have appeared or is forthcoming in the San Francisco Public Library, The Racket, Eunoia Review, Night Music, where she was the featured writer for the issue. She was a poetry fellow before graduating with an MFA in Writing from the University of San Francisco.