NANAY
(for my grandmother)
You rest on a rattan bed
wearing a sweatshirt
and two pairs of socks.
The humid air mixes
with Vicks and Ben-Gay
and makes me dizzy
as I take your hand,
place it on my forehead.
Mano po, a sign of respect.
Later, I find you leaning
against the wall where ants
have made a home in the cracks.
You stare at the six-foot
crucifix that we borrowed
from the village church.
You say Jesus is crying
and you wipe his bloody
cheeks again and again.
I don't ask why.
In the kitchen,
I take the tail of a pig
from your hand and eat it,
your communion with long life.
As I bathe you now,
you sit frog-like
on a stool, your eyes
bulging from sallow cheeks
and high brows.
I am slow to touch
your skin, pale rice paper;
afraid to tear it,
to make the blue bleed
like ink in water.
I glide the washcloth
along the hollow of your back,
over shoulders lifting
with each breath,
then between your breasts,
flat stones against your chest.
It is your first bath in months--
I smell the strength
of your body.
©1995, Severino Profeta Reyes