This is not your hand;
This bloated fish in my latex-gloved hand,
hematomaed like the drowned corpse I saw
when I wrote about night hawks who
forage after 12 for decaying remains,
blood-debt killings, a small ice pick stuck
to the temple of a gambler who owed 10 pesos
in pusoy, a security guard ended by
swift slash of a cheated husband’s bolo,
the top of his head dangling, sad lid
of a tin can, fodder for the sic o’clock news.

This body heaving under faded print sheets,
hooked to a machine, furrowed forehead of a familiar face
This tentacled body, flanked by beeping
sentries that sometimes malfunction

This is not yours.

But are your gestures yours?
Shrug of shoulders, crease of brow,
shudder of tears, when I sing, when
your siblings are here, when we pray,
when my sister and I forgot you were
in the room and talked about that
time I was molested by someone you know.

Found in your dresser drawer, in cursive,
“My life support is only God Almighty
and His Son Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit.
Never artificial respirator,” written
posthaste in front of envelope with
“Open in Case of Death” scribbled
across seal, your familiar script,
many times forged for excuse slips,
fieldtrip forms; now here we are,
me, your reluctant signatory; and here
you are, unwitting accomplice to our
betrayal; breathing, but not on your own.

At 3:16, a message sent in frantic electronic
squawking, orange light flashing, a minute to
let settle, the sound of pandesal
peddler horn forever defamed.

Another day, another 3:16, above
a text message from one daughter to another
the one not easily swayed, your faith excursion
companion; believer of lost mothers looking
for redemption, receiver of unwanted
faith healing, dubious witness of transfigurations.
Do you remember? The Santo Nino’s hands
embossed upon the sanctified swindler’s?
You whispered, “Look, look. Upon her palms,
images of little Jesus’s tiny hands?” And I
thought maybe I wasn’t blessed to see, but
I pretended, exclaimed “Oo nga.” Yes, I see!
I was nine years old.

These pedicured toes, still golden but
tumid, ripe with unwanted fluids; these
are not yours. This swollen knee, bearing
surgical scar; that time Tita Et warned you
through her clairvoyant cards to be careful,
watch your step, but you slipped upon rain-slicked
driveway, broke your patella, typed your scripts
at the hospital for weeks, while your knee
healed, all the time exalting your friend’s
psychic powers, saying you should have heeded.

Should we heed now? Is this you sending 3:16
messages? Are you now telepathic? Psychic?
Do you wish perhaps you that you did not cut off
supernatural friends, sinning skeptics from your
born-again life? Do you wish I were less sinful?

Do you wish you were?

And now your fate lies not in God, not in Et
not in your hand or your children’s
but in a committee of suited men in white robes
that pray to a God not too different from yours.

Why is it that to play god is fine, but to honor
your wish is an affront to the Divine?