Jason Magabo Perez

Every Single Ounce of Flood

Find us in trapper hats & oversized black Pendletons.

Find us in hand-hemmed khakis. Find us drinking the

blackest, most bitter instant coffee, smoking remainders

of discarded Benson Hedges cigarettes. Everything is

dialectical. Find us picking dirt from fingernails with

toothpicks. Here we are reclaiming every single ounce

of flood, collecting every single hot-sauce packet for

a future. Just say: salamat. Find us pouring whole milk

& sugar over avocado flesh. Find us playing chess in this

Lucky Seafood parking lot. Find us in gun metal grey

Members Only jackets & vintage San Diego Chargers beanies.

Find us in gift-shop white Lakers T-shirts & gold-plated

earrings. Here we are carrying plastic bags full of fresh

wet fruit. Here we are clutching tightly this mess of History.

Find us in denial. Find us denied. Find us deft in our critique.

Find us under thick black veil. Find us in solitude at this bus

stop. Find us grasped by prayer, grasped by ancestral singing,

ancestral longing. Say walang anuman in the same way you

say makibaka. Find us pulling slot machine handles into early

morning. Find us chasing children across this casino floor.

Find us out for a rare fancy dinner here at this casino buffet.

Find us sleeping on the floor of a gutted van truck.

Find us peeling open cans of corned beef at this rest stop.

Find us in this van full of steaming rice cookers at this

Padres tailgate. Find us frying SPAM at this church festival.

We say huwag matakot. We say huwag matakot to ourselves

every single day. Here we go again: reclaiming every single

ounce of flood. Here we go again: migratory in our resistance.

Find us pushing Seafood City shopping carts full of fish &

frozen meat & dried mangoes. Pray for us. Archive for us.

Archive us. Sing us, please. Find us pushing walkers tipped

with tennis balls at Plaza Bonita. Just say: Isulong. Just say:

Kumusta po kayo. Find us shopping for designer handbags

& furniture at Spring Valley Swap Meet. Here we are, a

protracted longing. Find us packing up the last of the dinuguan

at Tita's Kitchenette. This is who we are, ritual urgency.

This is who we are. Say ingat. Say ingat po kayo lagi. Find us

watching TFC at max volume & eating super maasim sisig

at Cristy's Bakery. Pour water for us. & say: isang bagsak.

Find us with lottery tickets & crossword puzzles at 7-Eleven.

Find us paying for everything with spare change. Find us

stacking calling cards & cans of sardinas. Find us simply browsing

the spice packages at Lita's Fish Market. Don’t ask us about

this English. Don’t worry about the blade of this imagination.

We left our hearts in Pangasinan, Batangas, Nueva Vizcaya,

Manila. We are a relational unmaking, so far from home. But find

us finding each other, fighting for each other, all over this work.