from “Reportage”
Crime Scenes
Victims
He screams in that field where they left him
and the field, briefly stirring to life,
allows something to escape, something rustles
and the blind widow falls to her knees on the floor,
touches that place where the bullet hit, that word
she cannot spell. A dead child’s birthday
draws to a close, and the mother leans her body
against the marble, watching the sunlight recede.
How easily the land accepts departures,
supporting furniture as pieces are moved about
to satisfy a new topography, as dust is swept off its face.
The man hears the movement in the field and asks
for its name, and later the field settles, grows silent
as it reshapes around another absence.
Interview
The young man’s sister made a collage of the sea green and yellow
instead of blue why asked the counselor this is my brother’s bruise
she said and I suppose that thumbtacked sun is the knife
that stabbed him the sun already wounding the sky making the sky bleed
Editing
A year ago his dead son a man cradling
the blue off the tiny lips his fingers trying to wipe away
voice over He says he still couldn’t stand to touch a canvas
seeing only the color he couldn’t remove
A gallery a man walking in
voice over What else do you want me to say
Sound Bite
I should have brought me today, get some work done. I have left myself in the bedroom, folded neatly on top of the pillows.
Editing
Is there a song we can use for the sunset this body’s stillness
a melody for the dust gathering at our feet
these buildings
are mocking us with their silence but even if the city clung to our knees and begged
I know you know we will not forgive this
is how we punish her by transforming her roads into scenery
Convenience Store
You follow the example of the young woman sitting beside you, the minutes contained within her hands. The minutes plucked like petals in that old game. He will come. He will not come. Destroy. Do not destroy. Tables away, a mother whose son is dying watches the movements of the young woman’s fingers, watches them hungrily. You watch her watching. You want to come to her with open hands.
Interview
Tell us how empty your life is now, somebody asks the young man in the funeral,
and the small crowd, drained of its patience, watches him, awaits his words.
The young man opens his mouth, and feels a rush of wind that is his language escaping.
The flowers lose their identities, their petals falling, and somewhere
a universe explodes into being and dies,
explodes into being and dies, again.
Prayer
Perhaps there is beauty
in holding your daughter close
after a rape something
about the angles the folds
in the clothes residual heat
eyes glazed delicate
lips swollen bitten the dark
smear on one thigh reminding you
of what she has what he wanted
they have mounted this scene
on pedestals haven’t they
carved this grief in stone
and marble but I do not have your discipline
I cannot distance myself
from what I’ve created can you tell me
how you do it
how you stand it the abysses born
every day maybe
it is a trick you can teach me
a lesson I can learn maybe
I am just flawed
Editing
and now look: the city watches us, desperate, unable to make us
listen she must know
how it feels to be ignored
Eliza Victoria was born in 1986. Her fiction and poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in various publications based in the Philippines and abroad, including the Philippines Graphic, Philippines Free Press, Story Philippines, Very Short Stories for Harried Readers, Philippine Speculative Fiction IV and V, Expanded Horizons, Cantaraville, elimae, and The Houston Literary Review. She received a Palanca Award in 2009 for her poetry collection, “Reportage”. During the same year, her short story, “An Abduction by Mermaids”, was named a finalist at the Philippines Free Press Literary Awards. Her fiction, Lower Myths: Two Stories, also won in the Horror/Crime & Suspense category of the National Book Development Board's Pinoy Story Writing Contest. Visit her at http://sungazer.wordpress.com.
