Day 238

A Diptych by Noeme Grace C. Tabor-Farjani

You rummaged through chest boxes and found a continent of things, a span of years.

You rummaged through words you wrote, you kept in secret, saved but unsaid,

wrapped and buried.

You found the breath, the rhythm of the once young and alive you.

II.

There are piles of laundry to fold,

beds to make, meat to simmer,

modules left to answer,

tiny hands seeking for answers

on gadgets that took my place.

My place...

But when the bed is made,

the meal is served, the whinings have stopped,

the floors are mopped, I sit like aswang,

half calm professional, half messed-up mom.

I do not know who wanders around

dropping, picking chores.

I do not know who flies or walks.

which other half...

All I know are tasks to do,

when they are done.

But when the day is done,

what is left to stay?

Clean goes to heaven,

crime goes to hell.

Nothing is left to purge—

Noeme Grace C. Tabor-Farjani has authored Letters from Libya, a chapbook of short memoirs which chronicled her family's escape from the Second Libyan Civil War in 2014. Her poems have recently appeared and/or are forthcoming in Your Dream Journal, Global Poemic, Luna Luna, Fahmidan, Rogue Agent, 433 Magazine, Cicada Magazine, All Female Menu, Harpy Hybrid Review, and Agapanthus Collective. In 2018, she successfully defended her PhD dissertation on flow psychological theory in creative writing pedagogy. She teaches high school humanities courses in the Philippines and is currently working on a chapbook of poems on spirituality and the body. You can find her on Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/noeme.g.c.tabor