fish market etc

By Shangrila Plaza

it flip-flops underneath the flickering lights
flight of stairs             swarms of flittering flies
from the (non-airconditioned) poultry           the people
are mad           i don’t understand       why mom [question mark]
            they eat chicken shit                why mom [question mark]
 
the man/kuya/sir/manong yells in guttural     rolling rrrs      clicking tongue
my mom takes bait buys tilapia (for paksiw)
                                        bangus (to stuff and grill)
                                        iddy bitty shrimp (for salad)
                                        galungong (for pinagnat)
                                        maya maya (for sinigang)
                                                i think about maya at school her chipped two front teeth
                                                hit-in-the-face-with-a-basketball victim         sad says my mom
now too much fish gunk/slime/blood dripping viscous clots
                                                                                                  down
                                                                                                               the
                                                                                                                          tiles
lapu lapu sounds like a word i can’t remember          pressured into a staring competition
glistening cloudy cornea
                                                   plops
                                                                 on the wet counter      mom let’s leave
but we cannot leave because the vegetable aisle is next
             and there are no toys at the wet market
                         so i gawk at dewy plump purple (nurple) eggplants              point at wrinkly bitter
                         gourds            like chunky caterpillar or grandpa’s fleshy forehead [question mark]
                         jump at long thick string beans tied with rubber bands or else they’ll escape and
                         crawl like worms       grin at rainbow-like vegetable medley packed in plastic
                         bags       mom reads my mind and buys a rainbow for thirty pesos    
 
the war between
               vinegar and sunbathed/baked eggs in thirty-nine-degree manila
                             offends my (s
                                                    n
                                                       o
                                                          t
                                                             t
                                                               y) eight-year-old nose
squish squish goes each step because i didn’t see the side canal
               feet submerged in pool of fish intestines       now cold and slippery
               slipping occasionally      trailing behind my mom becomes a battle
               overgrown toenails arch downward shakily gripping onto plastic sandals
               a bulbous iridescent fly threatens to land and feast on feet chum      mom stops ahead
               sniffs my patheticness            glares in you-are-dead

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Shangrila Plaza (any/all) is a first-generation Filipinx-Canadian immigrant who lives on the traditional unceded, unsurrendered territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Peoples. They are an undergraduate student at Simon Fraser University, where they study English and Creative Writing.