by Kristian Sendon Cordero

Father dissolved the dynamite
into the seawater and fed it to the fish.
Then we sold them in the pavement
garnished with exhaust pipe smoke.
We dyed white the gills
of mackerels and milk fish
to attract more buyers.
We soaked in a handful of salt
the hardly recognizable ayungin
and desensitized with ice the scales
of the pieces of anchovies.
We peddled them all day long
but no customer came to buy.
My mother went home mad
at her life and the whole house.
She will cook for dinner the bankulis
protruded eyes, scraped off silvery scales
that was earlier feasted on by flies
but now in a bowl full of soup.