Regie Cabico

---

I’m writing a poem

with a 250-year-old American musket
aimed at my apartment,
my mental health,
my students …

The Pentagon is 5 miles from me
and Iranian schoolgirls are lifeless
festooned in shrapnel

February has left me swinging
with my slippers, unhinged
on ice blocks and doubt

Tonight, a boy from Oxon Hill,
wrote and read his poem.

Like an onion, he peeled his feelings
on the black box floor

I don’t think my mom likes me
writing poems, he said.

She let me do this.
Said it would be my last time,

after she dropped him off like laundry.
There was an aching echo
between us: my eyes

spilling tears that cascaded:
endless pennies
on the floor.

How many children
are abducted
from their ability to express
who they are

because of parents
who won't let their kids

shine in the light and reflect
a truth?

because he read his poem,
I can write this poem as the ice melts


Regie Cabico is an NYU Asian Pacific American Studies Research Affiliate editing an anthology called The Times Is Now, in collaboration with artist Sok Song, for A Gathering of the Tribes, where he serves as Executive Director. His book, A Rabbit In Search of a Rolex, is available here.