from TUNNELS

Lawdenmarc Decamora

Tunnel #4 (Clark Freeport Amnesia)

Good morning, Spine. Out there stilt houses

look serious and fine, here we live on echoes

simply spelling the past. I’ve been told

by your sister that your Dad’s growing old

in Kampong Kleang. The sting of war, now stacks

of misery. His farewell letter on the drawer,

just sleeping soundly. Cars driven to drive ego

away and further into a port of somewhere.

Dead batteries tested, windshield washed clean,

ready to shelter no rain, even the 17th fly

coming to feel your spine,

your shoulder blades

the twin tunnels

the rising Phteah Keung  

I’m a mess I need to go somewhere else.

The roads, oh they’re paved for your courage,

road signs newly painted though they’re sick

to death of neon. Spine, I wake up early

to catch not the sun but the careful subtext

of your hips telling me that there’s not a day

brighter than your special scrambled eggs.

We seek explanations, we carry flags.

Please remember to feed the cat as ordinary

conversations may sink if your head’s going

from point to point, tropical to jazz.

Please remember your name’s Spine

and your Dad’s gonna call you her baby

and return to change this place into a forest

of Khmer flowers. But you say you’re not Spine

and wasn’t born so yesterday.

Tell you what: your real name’s Soul

and you continue to move places, ports

and bases, Angeles Nowhere,

Clark Freeport Somewhere.

Poetry and airplanes on our roofs!

And you were born in 1987, in the late 60s,

in the Romantic period, in a million fugue

state of 2053. And I was born right next to you.   

About the author:

Lawdenmarc Decamora is a teacher and poet from the Philippines. His literary works have been read and published in almost sixteen countries around the world. He wants to be a professional wrestler.