Post by thepoetslizard on Oct 10, 2008 15:53:15 GMT 2
Shakira Andrea Sison is a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine from the University of the Philippines in Los Banos. She was a Fellow for Poetry at the 35th U.P. National Writer's Workshop in Davao City (1999) and is the Co-Founder of the U.P. Sappho Society.
"Tincture"
Calamine was an old concoction
for the nagging itches
which kept us unstill.
We dabbed the starchy fluid
on the bites of past unions.
You squirmed,
chasing rashes shaped like faces,
picking scabs like bits of dust.
I had to tie you up
to conceal the scratches on your skin,
and you stopped moving.
In silence there is healing
but not absence of sin.
*
source:
Babaylan, ed. Nick Carbo and Eileen Tabios (aunt lute, 2000)
"Between Fingers"
There is no name
for the spaces fluids fill,
smoke stains,
and the smell of friction remains.
We call them by the scars left
by rings and hands
invisible bands
whose emptiness demands
a little more than pain.
(You sat on these cracks and told me
what I can't reach can't be bought.)
Only between fingers
can we really feel
what other numbed surfaces cannot.
