Tagalog

      Nanay once joked that when it came time to move to the U.S.

      she’d beg the pilot to turn back. Or she’d jump out of the plane

      swim back to Manila.

       Come back

      I pray

       langoy

       langoy

      langoy ka.

      Swim with the river.

      Sa ilog.

      Taga ilog.

      From the river.

      Tagalog: People of the River.

      Nanay

      emerges from the water, cursing

      the trash and tae floating all around her, clinging to her ill-fitting dress, something she’d only ever wear to who knows—maybe an embassy, to a stuffy plane full of ‘kanos & balikbayans-to-be.

      She twists her hair dry, a gesture her arms have memorized wringing wet fabric ten times as thick down the street from her house where neighbors gossiped over laundry.

      She thinks to get on a jeepney, but she doesn’t want to stink up the whole bus with the shitty water drying on her skin and clothes.

       PUÑETA!

       LECHE!

      Tagalog curses feel good on her tongue.

      She spits on the earth & begins to walk the many, many miles back to Tondo. She is used to walking.

      The skin on her callused heels is a map of broken streets & syllables that fall like rain water on newly paved asphalt