grandfather’s song

by Jered Mabaquiao

How quickly favors turn into fevers. 

I am one-fourth his age, he sits shotgun.

Our culture thinks I’m a nonachiever. 

Medicine takes spotlight. Art, the margin. 

My eyes forward facing, his in rear-view. 

Macular degeneration steals sight. 

“Laughable, that field. There’s time to undo.” 

Words equip, lolo. There’s evil to smite.

I’ll take the most unfamiliar route. 

Generational trauma follows us. 

I partake of this old forbidden fruit,

that I could finally ease all the fuss. 

Wounds that were inherited were not mine 

And words revealed, help me to realign.

Jered Mabaquiao (he/him) is a Filipino American creative writer and English graduate teaching assistant. Jered teaches rhetoric and composition at the University of Texas at Arlington as well as creative writing and literature courses. Jered also serves as executive board member for the Dallas Asian American Historical Society which seeks to build and preserve cultural narratives in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.