This Word, Iba
Sometimes the words taste bitter in my mouth,
like the way I cannot put together
a thought in Cebuano anymore.
Sometimes they are crackling,
spicy, mouth-watering, tangy.
I stew in these words.
My ends are served.
But I do not want just structure.
I want to pick at the bones,
I want the juice dripping to my chin.
Cebu, for me, is a bowl of iba,
kamias they call it in Tagalog,
bilimbi in English, eaten with rock salt.
A whole afternoon of sour ecstasy
until my teeth hurt,
until I close my eyes
and tears are streaming down my face.
Copyright @ 2012 Justine Camacho-Tajonera
Image By Tu7uh (Own work) [CC-BY-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
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