AMY RAY PABALAN

After Alex Tizon’s article "My Family’s Slave" as regards Eudocia Tomas Pulido 

(The Atlantic, June 2017)

What is Real

Do we dream

about memories?

Or do memories

become dreams?

Is your name

really Pedro?

Are you as handsome

as I picture you?

Do I really remember

you by my side

in the rice fields?

Did you really 

pick up my bolo

when I dropped it

and hand it back to me?

Or is my mind

playing tricks?

Because my pillow

is not you

But it is.

Maybe you are

just a beautiful dream

instead of a wistful memory

of a girl

who dreamed

of marrying you.

What does it matter now?

Bahala na.

I know my reality.

Katulong lang ako.




Amy Ray Pabalan is a poet whose poems appear in, among others, Verses Typhoon Yolanda (Meritage Press).