Nick Carbó

" Was Andalusia here or there? On the land . . . or in the poem ?" —Mahmoud Darwish I must admit to this outright theft. Before the crickets could impede me, I reached outside my window to grab as much of Andalusia as I could in the palm of my hand. I took the evening's silver from the olive trees, the yellow slumber from the lemons, the recipe for gazpacho. I made a small incision in my heart and slipped in as much as my left and right ventricles could hold. I reached for a pen and a piece of paper to ease-out the land into this poem. I closed the small incision in my heart and closed the wooden shutters of my window.

If you come to Mojacar and peel open an orange full of worms, count how many there are because those are the days it will take for your body to decompose after you are buried. If you come to Mojacar and find a small green snake with its back broken, don't step on it or you'll cause an earthquake that will catch up to you while you sleep in a continent far, far away. If you come to Mojacar and two brown long-legged spiders crawl on your face and shoulders, keep a sharp eye out for two individuals, a mother-son, or sister-sister who will try to take your money. If you come to Mojacar and see a scorpion scurry by your feet, note the direction it ran to, north, south, east, or west. You must avoid going there or risk the sting of losing a loved one. If you come to Mojacar and a cock crows ten times at three in the morning, lock your door and all the wooden windows because nightmares in silver dresses will arrive to slip into your bed.

I've always wanted to play the part of that puckish pubescent Filipino boy in those John Wayne Pacific-War movies. Pepe, Jose, or Juanito would be smiling, bare-chested and eager to please for most of the steamy jungle scenes. I'd be the one who would cross the Japanese lines and ask for tanks, air support, or more men. I'd miraculously make it back to the town where John Wayne is holding his position against the enemy with his Thompson machine-gun. As a reward, he'd rub that big white hand on my head and he'd promise to let me clean his Tommy gun by the end of the night. But then, a Betty Grable look-a-like love interest would divert him by sobbing into his shoulder, saying how awfully scared she is about what the "Japs" would do to her if she were captured. In one swift motion, John Wayne would sweep her off her feet to calm her fears inside his private quarters. Because of my Hollywood ability to be anywhere, I'd be under the bed watching the woman roll down her stockings as my American hero unbuckles his belt I'd feel the bottom of the bed bounce off my chest as small-arms fire explodes outside the walls.

Then, take this tambourine inside the sheep barn, listen to the anaconda's intestines, the shark's walking stick, learn the river insect's secret neon calligraphy, swim through Frida Khalo's hair and come out smelling like orchids, lift your appetite towards the certified blue turtle, feast on Garcia Lorca's leather shoes and taste the sun, the worms of Andalusia, don't hesitate in front of a donut, a ferris wheel, the crab nebula, excavate diamond-eyed demons, Chaucer's liver, Minoan helmets, paste Anne Sexton's face on a $1,000 bill and purchase a dozen metaphors, beware of the absolute scorpion, the iguana with the limping leg, permit indwelling, white words around the eyes, the confrontation of windows, never feed your towel to the alligator, he will eat you and eat you and eat you.

If you stand on the corner of Mabini Street and Legazpi Avenue, wait for an orchid colored mini-bus with seven oblong doors, open the fourth door— an oscillating electric fan will be driving, tell her to proceed to the Escolta diamond district— you will pass Maneng Viray's Bar, La Isla de los Ladrones book shop, the Frederick Funston fish sauce factory, and as you turn left into Calle de Recuerdos, you will see Breton, Bataille, and Camus seated around a card table playing abecedarian dominoes— roll down your window and ask them if Mr. Florante and Miss Laura are home, if the answer is, yes, then proceed to Noli Me Tangere park and wait for a nun named Maria Clara— if the answer is,Je ne se pas!, then turn right onto the parking lot of Sikatuna's supermarket to buy a basketful of lansones fruit, then get back to Calle de Recuerdos until you reach the part that's lined with tungsten-red Juan Tamad trees, on the right will be a house with an acknowledgments page and an index, open the door and enter this page and look me in the eye.

1. Benigno Aquino Jr. International Airport The adobe-brown terminal looms like a sleeping carabao caked with mud— you come up with fifty words to describe the different shades of green you saw rushing up from the ground, you scratch your neck, feel the grime and sweat from San Francisco or L.A. on your nape, you look out your window seat search for a plaque or a stain of blood— this is the tarmac where he was shot. (For a better view, go to Ayala Avenue in Makati. In front of the Bank of the Philippine Islands and the Insular Life Building is the statue with the stairs and the dove on his shoulder. While you're there, look for the statues of Lapu Lapu and Tandang Sora among the Ipil-ipil trees on Makati Avenue.) You pass through a fluorescent-white curtain of warm air as you descend into the unloading tube— a smile from an airline attendant, the long walk to the Immigration booth, Balikbayan sir?Welcome home. a stamp for six months on your U.S. passport, another ten dollar bill between its pages for the Customs people up ahead, Balikbayan? Do you have anything to declare, pasalubong, expensive gifts for the relatives? Thank you sir! a porter in a red shirt takes your luggage to the street level, asks for five dollars, the faces of a hundred people pressed behind a bamboo fence stare as you board a Golden or Metro taxi cab. You inhale the humid air, sweat is now running down your face. 2. E. de los Santos Avenue The Jeepnies are engorged with eight or ten passengers, each jeepney speeding and stopping with their fiesta of sounds, of colors, the bodies inside breathing carbon monoxide. You take the overpass into Makati— to the right is the long tan wall topped with barbed-wire hiding the luxury homes of Dasmarinas Village, to the left is San Lorenzo Village where you'll find the San Lorenzo Pre-school. Go to the house in Zulueta Circle, this is where the poet of Like The Molave once lived. His widow's name is Cora. On the corner of Edsa and Buendia, among the street vendors selling copies of Woman's Day, Manila Bulletin, or Marlboro and Winston cigarettes, you might see a girl without a left arm tapping on windows of stopped cars pointing to her mouth, asking for money. Every other year, before the monsoon rains, it's the same arm that's cut off just above the elbow, a different young face running up to cars in the same intersection. 3. Camp Crame and Camp Aguinaldo You pass Camp Crame where Ninoy Aquino, Jose Maria Sison, the poet Mila D. Aguilar, and countless others were "detained" under Marcos. The positive wire attached to the penis, the negative to the scrotum. This is also the place where more than a million people said "no" to the Dictator. You may still hear stories about the tear gas, the armored personnel vehicles, the ordinary people who would not move out of the way. They say that for three days the electricity to the whole city was turned off but the people still fought for freedom, sang songs to each other around bonfires, made love by candle light.