Peeling off the Shrimp

It was on the last week of summer,
We were inside the blanket of our innocence,
we danced like naive boys and girls
under the ecstasy
of music and disco lights
of cigarettes and chocolates;
of weeds, foils, bottles of white wine
and a 500 peso starvation bill he crumpled like shit
left lying on top of the old narra table


To flush you in the toilet was an option but
I would be happier if
You’d rot and die
inside
my
womb,


like a shrimp inside a jar-


but slowly dear child,
I gorge your flesh with my claws,
I knead your breathing space,
for the last time


after the third month,
I am now here lying on a surgical bed
like a swine,
with sterilized seaweeds compressed into thin sticks,


what for? I ask the nurse, feeling like a kid,
to absorb moisture and expand the cervix, she replies


she takes hold of the pliers-like instrument,
and sings in her own melody,
a sort of a limerick,


“seizing the leg, the arm, the genitals and other body parts
is the thing I always do
breaking this little saint’s heart,


then I twist and twist the flesh
and tears it from the cleft ”,she continues to sing


today dear child,
I bid you goodbye, goodbye-
as you die inside my womb
to welcome your final tomb.