Poetry Pause is the League of Canadian Poets’ daily poetry dispatch. Read “Elegy For Sour” by Alexa Tajanlangit.

---

Elegy For Sour

By Alexa Tajanlangit

Chicken, potatoes, soy sauce, garlic, peppercorn, oil,

the palliative care doctor called your four sisters

& brother to say their last goodbyes.

You used to tell me I was heavy handed

with the vinegar,

but I like my food sour.

The window slow fogged in April rain,

bringing into focus the wrongness of your wrist,

tendons curled inward, like you were grasping

for an invisible switch

to the parts of grief which blur

at its edges, the way time stilled

& stretched, the world didn’t burn,

but downpour gave way to summer

as your earthly form became nourishment

for worms,

moved fluid in my dreams,

slithered through the empty sockets

of your eyes, leering toward me as I jolted

awake, a scent so familiar

wafting through the darkness

of an aged apartment, I’ve returned

to the kitchen, dim overhead light casting

nostalgia in a sepia glow,

stovetop burners blaze by their own accord,

sacrality of ancestral dishes

push me to my knees

as the broth boils like the churning of restless waves,

bay leaves fall in finality,

exhaust fan whirling to a halt.

Phantom hands lead me to the table,

Frank Sinatra plays on the radio

as your hum echoes off the walls,

I stare,

at the stew, bed of rice, a happier time,

swallow stinging

memory, tears salting the wound,

I miss you.

---

Copyright © Alexa Tajanlangit

Alexa Tajanlangit is a Filipina-Canadian writer based in Toronto. Her works have been featured in Ricepaper Magazine, Petal Projections, Ginger & Smoke and elsewhere. She is currently working toward her debut novel. Connect with her on Instagram @literaryalexa.

---

Subscribe to Poetry Pause, or support Poetry Pause with a donation today!

---