In the Tropics
- In the Tropics
tropics, poetry, Joseph O. Legaspi
My husband swelters, fevered to a mercurial pitch,thundering from the raw ribcage of our bedroom.
Where have I taken him to? To my ancestralhome, a country a point of reentry for us both.He, however, stands tall in these parts. From afar
I'd spot him in thick crowds: a small volcanicisland lapped by flotsam. An uprooted sequoia.But he is not engineered for tropical weather,
his hirsute arms humidified slick, perspirationpools in the valley of his torso. Sunburnt, hives.But why not squeeze Nebraska into a port town?
I'd witnessed him scampering around the publicmarket, his forehead bumping into pigs' headslike ritualistic greeting. He'd swatted at meat
flies, nibbled on fried intestines, contemplatedthe purple eggs. So what if he'd slept sidelong,scissoring too-narrow hotel cots, feet dangling
like a sunbathing seal's. He's now stretchedentirely on our temporary bed, Vick's Vapo-Rubbed, calmed by NyQuil; he's become stilled.
He will rid of his passing ailment soon, he willconquer. As he had done fitting his Americanlimbs by limb into three-wheeler pedicabs,
which must've been designed with the three-legged milk stool in mind for absolute balance. [End Page 700]
joseph o. legaspi is the author of the poetry collections Threshold and Imago, both from CavanKerry Press, and three chapbooks: Postcards, Aviary, Bestiary, and Subways. Recent works have appeared in Poetry, New England Review, World Literature Today, Beloit Poetry Journal, and the Academy of American Poets' Poem-a-Day. He cofounded Kundiman, a national nonprofit organization dedicated to nurturing generations of writers and readers of Asian American literature.
