Why I Am Rarely Nostalgic
—Bauang Beach, circa 1965
She knew she should know
better
I was barely older than a
toddler
I had played with her only
daughter
during those summer days of
Innocence
by a sapphire sea warmed by a gentle
sun
When it was time to
leave
she gently suggested I
give
her daughter one of my
dresses
“An old one no one would
miss”
My eyes that squinted all
summer
opened wide and saw the
World—
ravishing with its poverty and
desires
ravishing with its grief, such
grief
Eileen Tabios has released over sixty collections of poetry, fiction, essays, and experimental biographies from publishers in ten countries and cyberspace. In 2021, she released her first novel DoveLion: A Fairy Tale for Our Times and first French book La Vie erotique de l’art (trans. Samuel Rochery). Her award-winning body of work includes invention of the hay(na)ku, a 21st century diasporic poetic form and the MDR Poetry Generator that can create poems totaling theoretical infinity. Translated into eleven languages, she also has edited, co-edited or conceptualized 15 anthologies of poetry, fiction, and essays.
