Joseph O. Legaspi

If your house is a dress it’ll fit like Los Angeles red sun burning west, deserts, fields, for certain it will drape even a boy no less boy in disrepair wandering from shore to crest, others mistake his searching for despair, no, never, but for thirst, cloaked as he is, warm, radiant in a house dress.

Bitaug, Siquijor, Philippines Three women dragged the spiky, bulky mass onto a bamboo table on the side of an island road. A raised hunting knife glinted in sunlight, then plunged with a breathless gasp, slicing into the unseen. To a passerby they were a curious wall, a swarm of onlookers, barrio children and younger women, buzzing with a rising gleeful cadence as a mother busied herself with the butchering. Surprisingly, a citrusy, sugary scent sweetened the stranger’s face when offered the yellow flesh like thickened petals, licorice to the touch, he stood awed at the monstrous jackfruit, bloodless armadillo halved, quartered, sectioned off for feasting. His tongue tingled ripely.This country’s foreign to me

The gowns and dresses hang like fleece in their glaring whiteness, sheepskin-softness, the ruffled matrimonial love in which the brides- in-waiting dance around, expectantly, hummingbirds to tulips.   I was dragged here: David’s Bridal, off the concrete-gray arterial highways of a naval town.   I sink into the flush bachelors’ couch, along with other men sprinkled throughout the shop, as my friend and her female compatriots parade taffeta dresses in monstrous shades of pastels—persimmons, lilacs, periwinkles—the colors of weddings and religious holidays.   Trains drag on the floor, sleeves drape like limp, pressed sheets of candied fruits, ribbons fluttering like pale leaves.   I watch families gathered together: the women, like worshippers, circling around the smiling brides-to-be, as if they were the anointed ones.   The men, in turn, submerge deeper into couches, into sleep, while the haloed, veiled women cannot contain their joy, they flash their winning smiles, and they are beautiful.