How to Traverse Terra Incognita

by Dean Francis Alfar

  Scylla

  I am the faces that you flee

  the many to your single one:

  it boils down to sex as mystery

  I hunger but do not beckon

  wholly of many holes

  too many for you to reckon

  with—yet you try, all of you,

  to fill me thrill me kill me

  weeping when I chew your muscles

  into strips of red and bone

  as you pass by in your mighty ships

  in an odyssey to chart the unknown.

  a bit of advice: when you plan

  a voyage of discovery, be aware

  of the monsters within the span

  of your desire’s latitude:

  for I will find and devour you

  and bask in your terrified gratitude

  or you can choose to flee

  the deep roiling emotions

  engendered by the fathomless sea

  claiming that sex always has victims;

  how it was a simple matter

  of you or me

  four

  PEPPER IS THE girl I meet at the museum a month before I fly back to Manila, exchanging brief non sequiturs in the hall of statues. It is her attire that gets to me first—a turban wound around her head (who wears a turban these days?) that crowns a perfectly-shaped face, with the inevitable sunglasses.

  “Why are you talking to me?” she asks finally in exasperation, fatigued by my relentless banter.

  “Why not?” I reply cannily. I can see her defaulting to my charm in a matter of moments. “I just want to get to know you.”

  “You’re better off with someone else,” she says, her face away from me. “I have terrible luck with men.”

  “Don’t you think love can conquer all?” I say, walking closer to her.

  “No,” she says, unmoving. “What a stupid thing to say.”

  Our first fuck is less than stellar. She is cold and hard. And she cries. Perhaps she is overwhelmed by my kindness and generosity as a lover. I do my best to cater to her eccentricities (I actually find the sunglasses a turn-on, and the snakes on her head don’t bother me, if I approach doggy-style), but it is the tears that get to me.

  I ask finally why she always cries, while and after we fuck.

  “Because your heart is as hard as your cock and hasn’t learned anything about love,” she says. “And because I know you’ll leave me.”

  And trapped by her self-fulfilling prophecy, I do.

  The poem comes naturally. Just a few more girls, and I can publish everything.

  Medusa

  if you would love me, understand

  it is not the snakes that will hurt

  you (they do not bite despite their

  appearance, they are harmless

  only hair with eyes and serpent

  teeth) but my eyes that have

  seen only bitterness—I can

  only share what I know

  if you would touch me, understand

  that my skin is forever smooth

  flesh (a trait shared with my

  immortal sisters, both of them

  alive only in the memory of words

  set down) and when your hands

  feel nothing but hardness, it is

  because they’ve become stone

  if you would leave me, understand

  I’d prefer you spend one more

  evening (echoes become poor

  company, though I’ve become

  adept at freezing time) but go

  when you must, leave without

  farewells, with your eyes

  on the object in the mirror,

  a statue in my heart

  I promise you

  I will understand

  five

  SHE IS AN older woman, so not my type, so I surprise myself by hitting on her at a party.

  “Just what do you think you’re doing, boy?” she asks, the lines on her face promising an evening of love from a woman who has seen all the world—even the way she called me “boy” makes me hard.

  “I think you’re beautiful,” I manage to say, feeling suddenly out of my depth but happy to be drowning, especially if I wash up on her bed later.

  “What you see is not me, boy.” She expels cigarette smoke in my face. “I am not interested in youth. Youth is brief, perilous, and inconstant.”

  “I’m not that young,” I say, behind the curtain of smoke. “And you’re not that old.”

  She laughs, and I laugh, and just like that I’m in love with someone who was old before men were young.

  Before we fuck, I ask for her name. She smiles the tiniest smile and says that names don’t matter, not now, not then. We undress in the darkness of a motel room. She is amazing, taking me slow, taking me fast, and clamps her hand over my mouth when, in the moment before I come, I try to tell her that I love her.

  When I wake up, she’s gone, leaving only her scent on my skin and a poem in my head.

  Hagazussa

  call me what you want

  it doesn’t change my name;

  it only gets in the way

  of action

  just touch me, here,

  but not too gently,

  don’t mistake me

  for poetry;

  i need you hard

  we don’t need to talk

  about anything when i ride you

  so don’t search my eyes for love

  when you die your little death

  there aren’t any epiphanies

  when a fuck’s just a fuck

  six

  SHE IS ON my mind all the time, the memory of her touch enough to get me hard again and again, despite the empty relief of tissued release.

  I search for her everywhere, at the motel where we fucked, at the house where we met, in the cab that we rode, on the pavement where we stood, in the 7-11 where I watched her unseal a fresh pack of cigarettes. I search for her in the onrush of years that follow, seeking the phantom trail of something lost before it was even truly mine.

  I’m under her spell and there is nothing I can do.

  I imagine that we spoke after we fucked, that she at least gave me a formal goodbye or a promise of more later, that we exchanged ‘I love you’s’ and vows of eternal adoration.

  I create a secret life for us, but even that spirals into an ending, and I am left, again.

  (untitled)

  I never wanted things to spoil

  I froze you, stuffed, zip-locked

  fresh as the day you said you loved me

  bottled up, seared, and sealed

  I froze you, stuffed, zip-locked

  I kept in stasis that silly grin

  bottled up, seared, and sealed

  I know it’s a little uncomfortable

  I kept in stasis that silly grin

  I edited the script of our goodbye

  I know it’s a little uncomfortable

  me: “Of course, of course”

  I edited the script of our goodbye

  you: “I’m sorry,” “I’ll stay”

  me: “Of course, of course”

  you: “That’s what I love about you”

  you: “I’m sorry,” “I’ll stay”

  I play this scenario over and over

  you: “That’s what I love about you”

  I’m glad you understand

  I play this scenario over and over

  Fresh as the day you said you loved me

  I’m glad you understand

  I never wanted things to spoil

  seven

  I SHACK UP with Jackie, an ex who isn’t too happy to have me back in her life. But the fact is that I’ve decided, after everything, that every man needs someone, just one, eventually, and she’s the one, my first, even if I know I love her more than she loves me.

  “That’s true,” she says, standing naked in front of the open window of her high-rise room. “I’m just someone convenient for you, for now, whi
le the grandmother you truly love cannot be found.”

  I cannot answer, cannot squirm away from her words. I try to hide my shrunken dick.

  “See?” she says. In the pale moonlight the upper part of her body unfurls wings as she halves herself, leaving her waist and legs standing. “Here’s the truth, my sad writer of poor poetry—we all make do with what we get, even if it’s not everything.”

  She bares her fangs. “Now get your shit out of my house before I get back”

  She flies out the window to look for someone, a lover or a meal, anyone, anyone, but me.

  Flyer

  half-asleep I watch you leave

  my eyes half-open half-broken

  goodbyes half-spoken

  pneumatic half-closed rheumatic

  releasing a hiss of air

  a kiss of steam

  (like the cracked safe in my dream

  you told me was my heart)

  It doesn’t matter what I see

  or think I see

  (if I hold my hand far or near, I

  can still see only half of it, and if

  I fold my hand, then only half of half);

  what matters is the weight of my eyelids

  half-suspended half-upended

  tonnage that threatens to shut away light

  (slam the window or close it gently,

  I can only see your back anyway,

  only that half of you)

  and movement and cigarette smoke;

  a snapshot blink

  that seems inevitable

  All I can do is embrace

  the half of you that stays

  GET TO KNOW THE LOCALS

  REMEMBRANCE

  ON THE DAY that he died, Mateo Nakpil, at eleven years old already prone to distressing moodiness and intense introspection, fell from the tall coconut tree he was climbing and broke his head. It was precisely because of the demanding nature of his heart that he lost focus on what, to him, was a task he had accomplished with unerring finesse since he was seven years old, grasping air instead of the knobby drupes, consigning himself to a descent that was brutal in its brevity. His thoughts, before he fell, were on the troubling growth of hair that had caught his body by surprise seemingly overnight, underneath his arms and in the guilty space between his legs. He was conscious, as he climbed, of the people who were watching him, in particular Marilen Diokno, whose budding breasts were already the talk of the boys of his circle, whose cooperation in his unspoken romantic fantasies was imagined. He chose to wear long pants that morning, to hide what was to him the obvious mark of his embarrassing march to manhood, for Marilen’s benefit as much as his own.

  Marilen, at ten years old already constrained by the unspoken edict of the older women, was prohibited from climbing and stood under the coconut tree looking upward, not so much at the boy she feigned disinterest in but more at the potentially fatal coconuts that would inevitably fall. It was her role to gather the hard shells that fell and move them to a prescribed location a safe distance away, where together she and Mateo would later strip the coconuts of their green husks or simply crack them open to drink the refreshing, delicately flavored liquid that was trapped within. She adroitly sidestepped the first two coconuts that fell, and was leaning over to pick them up, when Mateo succumbed to the power of gravity, landing so close to her that she was made an unwilling witness to the beginning of his demise, as her boyhood friend exposed not the body hair that he had been so concerned about, but rather the deeply scarlet liquid and grey contents of his head, eliciting a shriek from the young girl’s lips that echoed and resounded from the serene coconut grove, down the sun-dappled mountain path to the secluded valley where the village of San Poblacion sat under the combined shade of hundreds and hundreds of wooden coffins suspended from various rocky outcroppings, each one perfectly still and unmoving in the bright morning air.

  By the time Mateo was brought to his house, to the stunned attention of Carmela Nakpil, his widowed mother, word of his accident had already spread throughout the village, resulting in a densely-packed crowd that accompanied the dying child. Carmela did her best to ignore the full complement of her neighbors, the Alonzos and Magadians, the Simbulans, Reyeses, and Macaraigs, the Osiases, Drilons, and of course the Dioknos, who stood with the young Marilen in front of them, weeping copious tears that only youth that had lost a love-yet-to-be knew. Instead, the widow focused her attention on her son who lay broken before her, who only that morning had greeted her with his usual moody scowl as he slipped away from her embrace, the boy who reminded her of the only man she had truly loved. She dropped to her knees beside Mateo, carefully moving the troubled locks of hair that managed to obscure the horror of his injury, and fought back the wetness that came to her suddenly fatigued eyes.

  Outside, the assembled village made way for the last person who arrived: Old Ambo, who was at once master of herbal remedies and undefeated champion of the dusty cockpit where roosters, incensed by smoke and the taste of blood, fought to the death. He removed his slippers before he entered the house, and greeted Carmela with a silent nod before unpacking his pouch of select leaves, roots, and dried pieces of fruit and fragrant vegetation. His fingers blurred as he worked, quickly popping leaves in his mouth before spitting them out again with alacrity, applying paste and poultice to Mateo’s head, which had already stopped bleeding. He leaned his balding head as closely as possible to the boy and listened for long minutes to every sound and exhalation that escaped Mateo’s parted lips, his hands firmly on the boy’s chest, sensitive to each gradually slowing internal reverberation.

  “He has two hours left, perhaps less,” Old Ambo told Carmela, with a resigned expression as he sat back on his haunches. “I’ll go now and tell the others. They need to get ready.”

  Old Ambo’s appearance at the doorway coincided with the wail of Carmela, and before he could begin to speak, the villagers were already rushing away, abuzz with the confirmation of the Mateo’s imminent expiration, the Diokno family half-dragging the disbelieving Marilen in their wake.

  Redentor Alonzo, the coffin maker, began assembling a coffin, his materials and tools already at hand, working on the boy’s measurement from memory. Selina Magadian issued orders to her blind husband and brood of eight children, beginning hasty preparations for the traditional palitaw, that native rice sweet topped with coconut gratings that was so light that it floated in water. The arthritic Menggay Simbulan was carried back to her house by her hefty twin sons, so she could prepare a burial fabric appropriate for the boy who, in her estimation, would have grown up troubled and questioning authority, and was better off with the dead before the corruption she had envisioned could come to pass. Artemio Reyes, while his wife and brothers kept watch outside, began to dig in a secluded patch of land underneath the raised floor of his house, for the old Spanish coins that were his family’s only worldly wealth. Poleng Macaraig and her aunts put together the heavy new bolo, corduroy pants, and camisa de chino they had traded for, with a lost and dishevelled Chinese merchant, six months ago. Crisanto Osias crouched down and unlocked the thick narra chest in his bedroom and reached for a packet of unsent letters, rereading each of his compositions with a barely restrained excitement, pausing only for a moment before writing another missive in the time that was left. Jose Drilon busied himself in his backyard garden, distressed at the unanticipated timing of Mateo’s death, when the mountain air had barely a month to coax his flowers into bloom, and with a barely disguised sense of guilt picked the best of his meager floral harvest, settling for the sampaguita and ylang-ylang that at least had the foresight to cooperate in his time of need. And in the house nearest the stream that provided water for all of San Poblacion, Bobet and Erlina Diokno coached their daughter Marilen as best they could, having agreed without the necessity of a husband-and-wife conference that she would speak for their household, when the time came. Marilen only nodded as her parents spoke, retaining only half of the words that attempted ingress in her ears, s
till shocked by how quickly the events of the day had conspired to rob her of the boy whom she now realized, with all the force of her decade of existence, was the single person in the village, in the entire world, that she longed for.

  In Mateo’s house, Old Ambo prepared a mild sedative for Carmela, which she thought twice about taking before accepting with trembling hands.

  “You need to prepare, too,” Old Ambo told her gently.

  Carmela nodded and stood up, wiping away her tears. “He was all that I had left.”

  “He goes to join your husband,” Old Ambo reminded her, his stooped form framed by the doorway. “I will wait outside for everyone to arrive.”

  “Oh, Mateo,” the widow Carmela said quietly.

  Old Ambo walked out into the sunlight and looked up at the hanging coffins that created an erratic pattern of shadows on the ground before him. Though the occasional breeze zigzagged through the maze of coffins, all of them remained perfectly still. Old Ambo smiled to himself despite the tragedy, knowing that soon the suspended coffins would be heard again.

  When less than hour remained, the space in front of Mateo’s house began to fill with villagers, each one dressed in their Sunday best, their faces washed and shoes polished, for those who had shoes; lips rehearsing what they would say and to whom; carrying parcels secreted in woven leaves or old newspapers; fidgeting in the shade of the coffins above, as they balanced the requisite expressions of mourning and condolences with repressed mounting excitement. They all looked to Old Ambo for the signal.

  Old Ambo watched them and waited for everyone to settle down, mentally calculating and reviewing the potency of the temporary remedy against death that he had given Mateo, and decided that it was time. He entered the house and met the eyes of Carmela.

  “It’s time,” he told her. “We begin with you.” He left the widowed mother to her privacy, as was tradition, and told the people who waited outside to arrange themselves in a line, in order of family seniority, as was the custom.

  Inside her house, Carmela sat next to her pale son. She took a moment to compose herself, finding it painful to speak, hunting down words from her suddenly distant vocabulary and forcing them to reveal themselves in the light of her son’s deterioration.