Sunday spreads like butter
On warm pandesal, first of five
From the brown paper bag.
He took the second one out,
Hacks it in half with bare fingers
From the same hands that gather
Garbage from our neighbors.
Thrice a week, every morning,
He summons the household
Waste on a first-name basis.
We respond with our trash —
Well-kept bags that hide stink
(Though no better at cover up
Than concealing machinations
In glossy smiles of candidates,
With their decapitated heads
Repeated in tarps for the election).
He takes them with small bills
As payment — just enough
For his Grade 4 Math —
And flees to his kariton.
No one knows how often
He washes his worn gloves;
Or whose hands first wore them;
Or if they stink to high heaven.
After all, who among us can deny
The odor that toil leaves on our skin?
The marks of violence in repetition,
Of reverberating fatigue?
Let him enjoy his Sunday spread.
Resplendent, but tentative.
Hard-earned and honest.
Let him mangle his bread, as he pray,
Yet softly, for spoil
To come upon those living on prey.
The post Sunday Spread appeared first on The Manila Times Online.