For the Filipino nurses who have died from COVID-19
my people, my people—
before this, by day
the hospital rounds would
run like clockwork
by night you’d parade
in beauty pageants
at the central bus station
Ms. Philippines
in homemade gowns
shame on me for my own
shame, to have once
been mistaken for a nurse
though they were correct:
bodies that look like mine
die everyday and people say
it’s heroic
presidents thank you
for the contribution of your body
people stand on their balconies
and clap as you die first
native blooms cut
and left in the wrong dirt
did you know they export flowers
from Holland and sell them
in the Dangwa Market?
have you watched how,
despite the care taken
to force blooms to remain
bright during the journey,
the flowers die anyway?
my people, my people—
mass exported for slaughter
filling up ICU floors
while your white colleagues
work in COVID-safer
departments
they must think, you’re used
to eating with your hands
so you must be used
to feeling around
for scraps
my people, my people—
I am forever grasping
for language to speak
our grief
the death toll of Filipino healers
rises and I have nothing to say—
how to resist making elegies
of what they do not see?
how to offer small poems as salve?
how can I tinker with line
upon line when you are trying
to convince them, you, too,
are worthy of surviving?
This poem was commissioned by Diversity Arts Australia as part of the I Am Not a Virus project. Supported by Australia Council for the Arts, Create NSW, Creative Victoria, City of Sydney, City of Parramatta and Inner West Council.