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ALBERT B. CASUGA, a Philippine-born writer, lives in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada, where he continues to write poetry, fiction, and criticism after his retirement from teaching and serving as an elected member of his region's school board. He was nominated to the Mississauga Arts Council Literary Awards in 2007. A graduate of the Royal and Pontifical University of St. Thomas (now University of Santo Tomas, Manila. Literature and English, magna cum laude), he taught English and Literature (Criticism, Theory, and Creative Writing) at the Philippines' De La Salle University and San Beda College. He has authored books of poetry, short stories, literary theory and criticism. He has won awards for his works in Canada, the U.S.A., and the Philippines. His latest work, A Theory of Echoes and Other Poems was published February 2009 by the University of Santo Tomas Publishing House. His fiction and poetry were published by online literary journals Asia Writes and Coastal Poems recently. He was a Fellow at the 1972 Silliman University Writers Workshop, Philippines. As a journalist, he worked with the United Press International and wrote an art column for the defunct Philippines Herald.

Friday, June 1, 2012

THE REUNION


THE REUNION
 

They exchanged kisses like the years never intervened:
A quartet of old hags, except for their reflected seasons
Of grace they ended up chattering about. Remember?

The nun’s child ended up to be a cousin, and more hijada
Coming from concubines of their fathers dutifully ignored
By their genteel mothers. They were all here, laughing
Furtively about how a cousin-librarian literally died of fright
When caught in frenzied embrace with a town alderman
Who promptly perished, too, with a fractured heart, unable
To disentangle himself from the muscle-clamping guardian
Of the shelves whose most intimate loins closed tightly
On him like a book, they had to be buried like bookends.

Family secrets grow on trees here, roots and branches
Rampantly bearing the haves and have-nots.  Remember?


---Albert B. Casuga
05-31-12

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