dragonflies
if you grew
up in the seventies
you would
know
that uncle
chris didn’t die
in an
accident.
he jumped off a jeepney
on its way
to life.
the grass
was brown then
and tall
due to endless days
of sun and
silence.
and there
were only four streets
and four
corners in this town.
the firemen
didn’t have a truck,
only a
hose
when the
only cinema
burned
down.
we used to
catch dragonflies,
uncle chris
and I,
in the
ponds at the back
of the
warehouse
where they
stacked bottles
of
coca-cola when
it used to
be coke.
you had to
chew a lot of gum
to catch
dragonflies.
you put the
gum on the tips
of stiff
brown grass.
like those cattails with the pussywillow
of the song
the radio would play
under the
sun and the silence.
and if
uncle chris and i
would just
keep still,
the dragonflies
would come
to listen
to the song
and hover
over the pond
and land on
the gum.
uncle chris
and i
would watch
them die
in the jar
on the porch
under the
moon and the silence
until mom
and dad
would come
to fetch me.
after the
jeepney dropped my uncle,
it resumed
its trip to life.
the rains
chased the sun and silence away,
and the
grass turned green.
the streets
became numerous
and the
firetruck would be lost
if not for
the smoke and the noise.
they tore
the warehouse down,
and the
ponds were dried up
for a cinema that could never be set on fire.
and in the
night when nightmares would tire of me
I would dream
of uncle chris with dragonfly wings,
with silent eyes imploring me:
"open the
jar, set me free."
