Alien Visitors

By Carlos Yu

We arrive on U.F.O tractor beam
blue-booked sweat-studded
conditioned in northeastern wind
We choked on tropical air
Bodies bruised by remembering
We stand on opposite line like
foreign flags waving our
spangled stars our white stripes

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

No one waves back.
No one understands me My
sister has remember-mouth
From her tongue recall-routes
unravel She talks us through
the country in father-memory
The man behind the plexiglass
parts his lips I hear a wringing

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

I only see the hole in his mouth
the shape of my pain I cough
up old memories I reach for
my brown passport forgotten
in a bygone barangay There
is no Mabuhay, no Welcome
home.