by Marguerite Bouvard
Ana, I have learned to see
the mountain rising behind
you bearing the scars
of your ruined city, Havana, the sun-struck
panes of your grandmother’s window,
staining her hair with their reds Continue reading
Ana
Filed under Poetry
August, Blue Cow Pasture
by Maureen Alsop
A low moan in the ironwood
rose a year before she would touch
the stubble of his face to wipe
a fleck of salt off his chin.
Saturday, five days after
his accident. A rattle of heat
from the fan all afternoon. No one
speaking. In the low pasture, cows Continue reading
Filed under Poetry
Equator Beach
by Julie Titone
The boy is naked. To shield his groin, his mother ties a scarf around his middle. He sheds it during his dash for the ocean. She laughs, lets him run about starkers for awhile. She calls to him with words that I recognize only as German and playful.
I am impressed by the cut of the mother’s black bikini and the body that gives it shape. She rises, retrieves the crimson scarf, takes the two-year-old back to the blanket and offers him bottled water. She ties the scarf around him again.
Why doesn’t she simply sunscreen the bejesus out of the boy? Maybe she did that before they reached the beach. Or maybe no one warned her about this West African sun, how it permeates everything so deeply that you even feel it at night, radiating from the red earth. I am lathered up even though I stay under the cabana most of the time.
Continue reading
Filed under Fiction
On My Birthday
by Rebecca T. Añonuevo
Translated from Filipino by J.A. Del Prado
(see original here)
What can be awakened with what is unsaid?
Once again, I nearly become restless
thinking that even the purest
offering of love
leads to nowhere
in this world.
Continue reading
Filed under Poetry
Sa Aking Kaarawan
by Rebecca T. Añonuevo
May napupukaw ba ang hindi sinasabi?
Muntik ko na namang ikaligalig
na wala nga yatang pinatutunguhan
kahit ang pinakalantay
na pag-aalay ng pag-ibig
sa ganitong mundo. Continue reading
Hawaii Pacific Review 