PATINTERO: REMEMBERING INDAY

PATINTERO



For my Dear Sister (Brenda Teodora Casuga-Maglaya+)

How do I best remember you, hermanita?

That father would call you princesita mia

after a swig of Domecq and sarsaparilla?

You were not one to get excited by these,

nor would you bat an eyelash; you’d jump

off his lap and call out to me: “ ‘manong!

That was always my cue for another game

of patintero under the lone lamp on our

camino; your sad eyes lit up, you’d smile.

The smile you bravely left me when you

hugged me from your sick bed, was your

own smile, nobody else’s. I will not forget.

---Albert B. Casuga

11-03-11

*Culled from "Poesias Para Los Muertos". Brenda is a younger sister who died in Naguilian town in La Union Province, northern Philippines. She was my best friend.