Father Leaving

Your steps are heavy
like the baggage
you carry and drag
packed with uncertainties.
A flood of tears
drowns this blue hut
as you move out.
Your slouch suggests
how we will be missed
like your breakfast value meals,
the crisp of unpaid
water and electric bills,
the bittersweet song
of Totoy wailing for milk,
and the spicy blaspheming
of mother at your crucified God
for putting nothing
but salt in our rice.
I wonder how time
will fly without you
as you fly too
towards Saudi
where you will scrub toilet
bowls and urinals in exchange
for our bright future.
I wonder who will cradle
my face when my eyes turn
misty in times like this –
the way I have been meaning
to put this poem
out of its misery.

—-
Gino Dolorzo from Cagayan de Oro was a fellow at the Davao Writers Workshop this year.