We can only laugh at our fortune

We can only laugh
at our fortune.

Our misfortune.

We are unfortunate
because we are
strangers
to good luck
its logic of loss
as flawed
as extending our meal
with a bowl
of rice
a pinch of salt
a phrase
of a prayer to taste
a bowl of rice
with father's
oracion to create
the magic
of fulness,
asin, asin,
makalulukmeg
iti pingping.

We eat with gusto,
with the picture
of tomorrow
in the head
spinning and spinning
for the good days
to come about
on the table
in the kitchen
in the pocket.

It is not the same here now,
not in this strange land.
Like us, our dreams
are on exile. This is the land
that gives birth
to our stangeness
to news back home
and to all homes wreaked
by exported wars and democracy,
even as each morning we feed
on hope and more hopes.

It is cold down here
in mornings
as the snow remind us
of spring coming
and soon.
The flowers will bloom
and hide the destruction
in other lands
the fears in other people's hearts
but not here where illusion
is real, where the picture
of progress is perfect
for ranchers becoming leaders
and hunters becoming leaders
and old wealth becoming
older and older
as the power of thieves
get entrenched and entrenched.
It is the same story
in the land we come from.
It does not end.
It begins and begins again.


Torrance, CA