poetry

Miguelitito
by Cesar Ruiz Aquino

The breakdown was my second, and like the first
Was the strange-mindedness that is the effect
Of sleep-deprivation. I had insomnia for days
And in the night leaped from my window with a shout.
One every twenty-five years, I thought, near bemused
Upon recovery.
I was fifty. I compared the two. This one was the opposite –
I was not plagued by questions but burdened with answers.
It was less painful, had not hurt me
Except for the straitjacket
And the fatigue in the morning when I woke.
I was older. Rustum to Sohrab. I was an aging, aged
Dream and hallucination champion, as it were:
Three young friends, campus writers drawn to the old prodigal
Poet, watched me as I fought the bind. My eyes
Must have been both funny and scary, for they seemed
To shift continually out of focus – my eyes
Not the young men standing at the door: Vic, Mickey, Mark
Who were in fact normally crazier than I, particularly Mark
Who was mad.
“Miguelitito.” I spoke the name in chips.
It seemed impossible to talk; I was not quite back yet.
The boys, except Mark, had craned forward
And strained greedily to hear.
“The name,” I had said. “I have…the name.”
They knew I had been somewhere.
They sensed my urgency. That my words came from
Deep within, that I feared forgetting the name.
This was, after all, the man who thought he could fly
And shift at will.
Who thought he had figured out the equation.
But when they had drawn closer I had a sudden
Change of heart. It was mine. The name was mine.
So I invented another and passed it false.
“The name…give me…the name.”
“Miguelitito,” one of them said.

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