Pagpág

by Rency Raquid

Dust is a strange verb – the way it collapses

two meanings into a syllable, each undoing

the work of the other – the mindful task

of feathers or rags, but also the light chore

of fingers, the sprinkling of confectioner’s

sugar over pavlova, the first sweetness

to touch the tongue. In Tagalog there is a word,

almost an equivalent, carrying twin

onomatopoeic thuds – pagpág – part

permission, part riddance, as in knocking

on a coffin lid, the wooden door to a room

turned upside down, leading to long

flipped corridors, metal staircases spiralling

down to attics of houses, a drowned city

beneath a blue lake, like the city

I’m from, but not from. Before heading back

we’ll be sure to wander, in case they try to follow,

so they will wander too, flaunting their pearls,

their cufflinks on thin wrists, their sensible shoes.

Not to confuse or shake them off, but to say –

as if they could hear us – here is the rest

of the world after the world. We’ll lose them

eventually, hopefully, in 7/11 trips for cold drinks

and touristy gingko-lined streets. We’ll be occupied

minding our own businesses, living from room

to room – scattering ourselves – the skin we outgrow

sloughed off, mingled with carpet pile,

wrinkled hems, or scrubbed off and swept

down the narrow throat of the drain. I don’t think

about this often. I don’t think about this

often enough, but I’m reminded of it by the work

left-behind – stripping the bed, vacuuming, letting

the outside in – it never seems to settle, always

catching light, what mindless suspensions

in the air.

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Rency Raquid volunteers at the Oxford Poetry Library. His manuscript,  Rot Takes Time, recently won an Eric Gregory Award. His work appears in  The Poetry Review,  Poetry London,  Propel, and  The Author.