for confinement in cages
Will dream of need
while swallowing
deserving of punishment
Boxes
the accoutrement for festivities
some will yawn
their breathing
go astray
outside
and molted its skin
and desired
A cradle
It’s gone
Sullied, destined to be embraced
in the womb
to slay
About the Author
Mesándel Virtusio Arguelles’ 12 books in Filipino include, among others: Parang (High Chair, 2008), Alingaw (High Chair, 2010), Alinsunurang Awit (University of Santo Tomas Publishing House, 2010), Antares (Aklat Kurimaw, 2010), Mal (High Chair, 2011), Mga Tala at Panaginip (High Chair, 2012), Guwang (High Chair, 2013), Pilas ng Papel: Mga Sanaysay sa Tula (De La Salle University Publishing House, 2013), and Pesoa (Balangay Books, 2014). His volume of selected poems, Anima, will soon come out from Ateneo de Naga University Press. A recipient of multiple national awards and fellowships in the Philippines, Arguelles is co-editor of the journal hal., works as a book editor, and teaches literature and creative writing at the De La Salle University in Manila.
About the Translator
Kristine Ong Muslim is the author of several books of fiction and poetry: Age of Blight (Unnamed Press, 2016), Butterfly Dream (Snuggly Books, 2016), A Roomful of Machines (ELJ Publications, 2015), Grim Series (Popcorn Press, 2012), We Bury the Landscape (Queen’s Ferry Press, 2012), as well as Black Arcadia and Lifeboat, two poetry collections from university presses in the Philippines. She serves as poetry editor of LONTAR: The Journal of Southeast Asian Speculative Fiction, a literary journal published by Epigram Books in Singapore, and co-editor (with Nalo Hopkinson) of Lightspeed Magazine’s “People of Colo(u)r Destroy Science Fiction.” Widely published in magazines and anthologies, she grew up and continues to live in rural southern Philippines. Her translations of Mesándel Virtusio Arguelles’ poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Circumference, The Adirondack Review, Spoon River Poetry Review, and elsewhere.