Two Poems
Tito Joey
delicately asleep in his coffin delicately tended to
each bead of his rosary delicately rubbed the
bruised skin on his forehead from rough repetitive
banging delicately swinging me on the hammock
delicately showing me a dead body for the first time
(delicately his own) circling delicately the indent
on the same banged spot on the wall in the solarium
with the pattern of a bull's eye we would
fast-handle Hail Marys together with my mother
Hail Marys clicking against each other like a busy
staple gun
HailMary full of GraceHailMary full of Grace
HailMaryfullofgraceHailMaryfullofgrace
fullofgrace ofgrace fullofgrace ofgrace fullofgrace
Hail Mary full ofgraceofgraceofgrace
a brain filled with wind chimes
Iron Body
I am no longer attached to my flesh. Even so,
it is difficult to go out into the world like this
Half other I am sometimes afraid of the
hurtling Our assigned junkyards filled with
medical equipment and assisted-living devices
My body moves in prone mode exposing some
truth stored in our limbic systems Perhaps
I am a heroine in the iron mud
Feature Date
- February 1, 2023
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“Tito Joey & Iron Body” from PHANTOMPAINS: by Therese Estacion.
Published by Book*hug Press on March 31, 2021.
Copyright © 2021 by Therese Estacion.
All rights reserved.
Reproduced by Poetry Daily with permission.
Therese Estacion is part of the Visayan diaspora community. She is an elementary school teacher and is currently studying to be a psychotherapist. Therese is also a bilateral below knee and partial hands amputee. She has been a guest editor and judge for Poetry in Voice. Her first book, Phantompains, was published by Book*Hug, and was a finalist for the CLMP Firecracker Awards and the 2021 Indies Foreward Review. She lives in Toronto/Tkaronto.
Therese Estacion survived a rare infection that nearly killed her, but not without losing both her legs below the knees, several fingers, and reproductive organs. Phantompains is a visceral, imaginative collection exploring disability, grief and life by interweaving stark memories with dreamlike surrealism.
“Phantompains is a text of rare power, birthing a brave new world flush with pain, lust, drugs and the uterus. Estacion’s ‘Eunuched Female’ is a masterpiece: utterly indelible.”
—Tamara Faith Berger, author of Queen Solomon
“I love Therese Estacion’s book. I love its humour, clarity, irreverence, and rage. It’s not a book about triumph (though she has triumphed), or perseverance (though she has persevered), or courage (though she has it). To me, it is a book about vision and reckoning, descent and return. Therese Estacion plunged into an abyss—found suffering, dehumanization, terror—and when she emerged, she chose to make radically confrontational art. Phantompains is the cosmic result of her dwelling, and her passage. In her words, 'she became the subject'—I think she also became the seer.”
—Sara Peters, author of I Become a Delight to My Enemies
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