How I’d love to hear a story –
one of yours –
told toothlessly
and with consonants carved lopsided by your accent.
A story mixed-up,
in which beginnings are endings
and endings don’t end,
but start mid-sentence
and twist,
and wind,
till there’s a knotted ball of language at your feet.
I want to hear a story
of Filipino witches,
of voodoo,
of tropical sasquatch,
and of diving in twenty feet of turquoise-to-indigo-ocean
for abalone
off the island I’ve never seen –
where I’m from.
And I want it told
in Filipino and English and Spanish and Filipino,
and Chinese and English.
Let me watch you slap your knee.
Story me, Dad –
I’ll cheer this time, I promise.
Let me watch you make no sense,
for, now,
in my crazy life –
gone screwy with strategy –
I think I’ll understand.


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Copyright ©2000 by Brian Tacang. All rights reserved.
Published in Poetry the Write Way: Webstatic – First Journey (Sept. 2000)
Brian’s biography page