Tag: Amado Guinto Jr.

The untrained see
absurdity.
For the novice –
Secrets!
But he, he knows
how it feels, perhaps,
as he cuts ’round

limb and body.
Bleeding earth blood,
both remain
silent, pretending
blood is infinite,
the wound – fiction.
He covers it with earth.

He knows which
part of the limb
or body to wound.
Where precisely?
Near the heart,
where life
springs eternal.

The reason?
It’s marcotting, he says,
wounds are needed
to grow roots,
new ones,
which we wound again,
to grow more roots.

With his tactics
for surprise,
he jolted our nerves,
despite the glass between us
as he flashed
a face of full sunlight,
like a jack-in-the-box
with visage, brown
freshly painted
red blush, circled
on cheeks
which are dry
riverbed of tears,
which are wet
once the box of day
comes to a close:
just to sell sticks
wrapped in see-through
gold.

—
Amado Mahds Guinto, Jr teaches at the English Department in MSU-Iligan Institute of Technology, Iligan City. He is a fellow in the 21st Iligan National Writers Workshop. Aside from writing, he also dances and choreographs.