melay
By Anna Li Sian

She was three years old, more or less,
seated on a sun-stained Manila sidewalk
like a lucky silver peso,
when she was found for the first time.
Well, maybe it was the second time
because when she escaped the womb
her Mama found her beautiful but
two Filipina arms were too tired and full of burdens to hold anything baby-shaped
and they drooped to the heat of the street where Melay grounded tiny brown feet
and grew like a three-year-old vine, winding through the marketplace.
She was first found with viny fingertips dipped
in carts of kalabasa, sebuyas and papaya but she belonged to no one then
She was passed around like a hot potato until age seven, and found, finally
chosen, to re-route, re-root, cling onto and dig into New Hampshire granite
where jackfruit trees would wither in the winter.
but with one shot Melay hit the open-minded ex-hippie New Englander
       mommy jackpot
and mommy found a lucky penny too.

8 months and a full-car load later, she’s sandwiched
hugging tiny station wagon door on a sharp turn
and from that day on I’m dubbed “Missy Pusher”
and her accent’s gone.
Autumn apple picking instead of piñá and kamatis in the city market
and metal blades on ponds frozen over
replace sand castle constructions on white Boracay beaches.
Melay now prefers microwavable White Castle burgers.

As if memories are laced with puffer-fish poison
her immune system naturally rejects them
Like when I ask her “Na-alala mo ba ang Manila?”
her accordion nose makes folds and shows off its button flatness
as she turns to me
(one that pinays often hide behind pointier plastic surgery)
she licks blowpops and spits the native off her tongue
For eight-years, life hones hers sharp like a Bolo knife
pint-sized sarcastic tomboy could slice sugar cane stalk with American words
she was built strong but lacks the foundation to build upon
“I don’t remember that, I don’t know that stuff anymore!”
and I tell her

if you remember the words it’s like knowing a secret language
we can tell inside jokes and make fun of the people who don’t understand
and I teach her how to say “You stink.”
I want to remind her of the brown skin she was found in
skin that lightened from all this re-routing, roundabout merry-go-round
when what she needs is to find safe ground to hold her down.
Under pine trees glazed with ice i try to remind her of
Adobo spice sprinkled on chicken and rice and pineapple slices,
lickin the juice drippin off lower lip and remember the sampaguita-pickin
       it was paradise
coupled with poverty-stricken self-sacrifice
“you stink” is her one link to this,
she says it to red-sox baseball-cap-wearing kids
complete with freckles and double eyelids
New England classmates, Billy, Timmy and Kimmy
meet Melanie Williams, she looks a little different but treat her the same.
Here, even by new Mommy,
Melay is pronounced Me-lie, a name farther from Pinay
and closer to lies, and
Melay becomes Melanie, closer to Melanin,
The thing that shoves her farther away
from her first grade classmates than she can even comprehend.

© Anna Li Sian