Despite My Best Efforts, Even My Children Have Turned Into Rabbits

I don’t mean to brag, but many men have laid claim

to my translucent and sleeping darlings,

the pearls I pass each month into porcelain

mausoleums, the half-lives left unstruck,

reverse-burn, the fire eaten by the kindling beneath it.

What these men do not know is that my children

will be rabbits, specifically girl rabbits, furred and lithe and prone to bolting.

And they won’t realize

until it’s too late—on an ultrasound, rabbit fetuses

and human fetuses simmer so similar:

from the gray clumps of static the physician

divines the head, the bean-curve spine,

two strong hind legs. Baby rabbits are born

altricial, which is a biologically beautiful way of saying “helpless”: pinkly

naked, eyes and ears pleated

closed. For weeks, the world is only touch and heat,

the steady vibration of a dozen tiny hearts massed

for warmth. Doctor, bring me my bundle

of bunnies, I want to kiss their small, quivering faces,

these newly-dumbstruck dears. Soon they’ll learn

that even helplessness is temporary, flexing their legs

down aisles of sweetgrass. Seasons go. Bloom-bursting winter pelts. Lover-husband, you

should have known that whatever my womb grows will be wild, quick, inclined to

multiplication.

The stillest eye in the yard, the sudden explosion of motion. Lover-husband, let me

make you a deal: your progeny will be as bright and numerous as the stars,

they will populate the earth, terraform the dirt,

they will bear your mark and name and lineage

but they will have my voice, my face, my predilection

for ill-timed surprises, my lightness and efficiency in fleeing, my tendency to

burrow and sleep, my endless drive to live like prey and yet keep on living.

Ms. Manananggal’s Big and Beautiful Life in Kansas City, MO

one must imagine the Manananggal happy / imagine her outside the gay bar, her body cast in

neon / she tilts forward, catches fire from a friend’s lighter / cups the flame like it’s something

small & fragile / imagine her with a whisky glass, her throat warm & raw with song / imagine

her sinking the eight ball, the cue at her hip / physics is just another game she plays / & no need

for a warm leather jacket, her wings work just as well for the walk home / imagine her showing

her second face on the subway when a guy just doesn’t get the hint / she bares her talon-teeth,

her tongue long & cracking like a whip / her pupils gone goatlike & rolling / her girlfriends say,

girl, where did you learn to do that & can you teach us, too / by monday she’s back to business

at the clinic / & despite what you might have heard, she’s no baby killer / no fetus-eater / but

with a job like this, well, you get called it all / imagine her unbothered by the words bitch,

bloodsucker, abomination / when the protesters out front try & block the doors so that a young

girl can’t get in, the Manananggal flaps her wings once, twice / blows ‘em all aside / imagine her

at home on a thursday night reading poetry / the pages splayed like the wings of a swan / the

words caressing her tongue when she mouths each one / imagine her taking lover whose hands

heed her wants / yes, these hands go where she leads them / placing kisses on the lips of both the

Torso and the Legs / she is no flesh-feeder / no blood-sucker / but god, she and her lover are

gloriously hungry for each other / imagine the joyful sounds she makes / yes, they are the sounds

that your lola once told you to fear / the tell-tale tik tik, the wak wak of a woman cresting into

ecstasy / imagine her dreaming of children / futurefeet cast into the cold-shock creek /

futurewings flinging flashlights in the summer dusk / each futureface is like a bright light pulled

through water / imagine her with time to mourn the ghosts & creatures that came before / a

candle lit for each one to call them home / imagine the windows of her apartment thrown open

while she fries up garlic and onions for pancit / so that the scent wafts over every rooftop / &

anyone who is hungry, she invites them in / yes, even the weredogs & witches from the outskirts

of town / imagine she does not push a stone up the hill alone / because what stone is worth

pushing alone / imagine this parade of forgotten monsters / & the music of their many limbs as

they march upwards / imagine this endless procession / the stone is still heavy, but the party is

merry / & when they must begin again / they begin, again