Bedtime calls hurried us to our beds,
every night was an exciting escape
where waking up was to be beneath soft cotton sheets,
and the world outside the room was where we slumbered,
and it was all because of you and your voice that said,
“Wansapanataym…”—that rooster cry that roused us,
and the Bunny, and the Dog, and the Snake
that stretched from the shadows of your hands
to the wall where your shadow play was always staged.
But age has demanded you and us
to swallow bitter spoons of cure we had refused then;
now finding yourself retired on a bed
where we cannot hurry to or escape from,
in a room where walls allow no shadow,
forcing any to retreat into your darkening skin
that has become the stage of a dying theater house,
where the last act is a shadow play
of red rashes and gray spots.
—-
Melona Mascarinas is a Creative Writing student at UP Mindanao.