Bio: Karlo Sevilla of Quezon City, Philippines is the author of the poetry collections “Metro Manila Mammal”(Soma Publishing, 2018) and “Recumbent” (8Letters Bookstore and Publishing). Recognized among the Best of Kitaab 2018 and shortlisted for the 2021 Oxford Brookes International Poetry Competition, his poems appear in Philippines Graphic, Fevers of the Mind, Philippines Free Press, Black Bough Poetry, Protean, and elsewhere.
Our Former Neighborhood in Quezon City The street of my childhood home in Lagro carried my growing feet: in steps and steady stance. Against its curb’s rough edge, like a match with a damp head struck again and again, I kicked repeatedly to scrape off dog poo stuck on my shoe sole every time I stepped on one. Sunlight peeked through the leaves of the tree I once hid behind when I fled Gardenia nursery school just for kicks, to get home to my mom before my nanny could fetch me. (I cried when she caught me.) We moved to the other end of the city just before third grade, when the house was hastily sold. I haven't visited since. Saturday morn I return and take another walk — after almost four decades. The sari-sari store at the corner by the jeepney stop has long closed. Our former creditors' bungalows have grown to two stories. A flower garden adorns almost each small front yard. And, our previous house with maroon exterior is now creamy white. Ten minutes in, my legs feel like Sisyphus' rolling up the rock. Must be my age and because the formerly short and straight street has become longer with twists and turns: it remembers me and now in cursive its path spells out my name! Therefore, We Are Remember the story of the flame that pursued the moth into a cave and smoked out the bats? Or when the sun dipped down an astronomical bit and burned wings of wax and feather even before ascent of the craftsman's son? Ah! By our own volition we traverse and discover through the wilderness, paths cleared and blazed by the hands and feet of those who came before us. Myth: the paradise, first couple, serpent. Real: the tree, the touch, the taste. We: slither, soar, to bright. Ah, told through the ages: The candle flame danced but stayed in place. It was the moth that chased. And the sun, ever faithful to her orbit, always kept her distance. It was Icarus who flew too close when given the chance. Legend Has It Upon “Fuego!” her brain was blown to smithereens and all the soft grey blobs transformed into a thousand different species of moths and radiated and fluttered to the four ends of the Earth. Then, her lifelessness fell supine on the ground and from her holed chest where her whole heart used to beat, a red fountain of mercy jetted and flowed for her traitor and executioners, as well as for the devil who hired them.
Fevers of the Mind 