Count your blessings,
Essex Hemphill autographed inscription, 1994
I was 23 and a fledgling homosexual
lost at Limelight.
Essex Hemphill
who wrote of gay weddings
and ballrooms
Essex Hemphill
who named corruption in DC,
who lived with HIV,
and dismantled queerphobia
by staging same-sex kiss-ins
on church steps
That Essex inspired me
to compose my Filipino rainbow narrative.
I don’t count my blessings
but recount the unexpected goodnesses
of the day:
Teachers who greet me with coffee,
Students who tackle haikus with onomatopoeia,
My nephew in his baby Yoda birthday bathrobe,
Shall I count the blessings I witness
Or count the blessings I grant
*
Iona Senior Center
Karin, a soprano taught the patients a canon
All things shall perish
From under the sky
Music alone shall live
Never to die
Bill, a once-upon-a-time tenor sang a solo
And wept
Karin wept
Cecilia wept
I wept
Weeping is its own music
Did we weep at his intention or
The fact that Bill never spoke but could sing,
Did we witness a blossoming
In radiant vibrato
Or an operatic prayer?
;
Days zoom, a self-steering
Tesla car on New York Avenue
Crashing into Wendy’s
I want to stay
in the belly
Of a birth canal
I want to stay an idea
or polished icon
Poems published
work done
I don’t feel ready for the world
Masked in black brow frames,
Camouflage covid mask
Smudging my lenses,
my discontent breath,
Survivor still
in a city with a disgraced Popeyes
Chicken franchise
Full of rats running
through floorboards,
Anti-Vaxxers
Busboys & Poets open micers
Pontificating misinformation,
shivering syllables of no, no, no
shaking every bone of me
Sunlight is snipped
I am enveloped by shadows
Essex, help me count my blessings…
Regie Cabico is the first Asian American and openly queer poet to win the Nuyorican Poets Cafe Grand Slam and is the Executive Director of A Gathering of the Tribes. His collection of poetry, A Rabbit in Search of a Rolex was published by Day Eight Press in 2023. He is the Kennedy Center for The Performing Arts slam poetry teaching artist and publisher of Capturing Fire Press.
Regie Cabico is a resident of Union Market.