[av_textblock size=” font_color=” color=” av-desktop-hide=” av-medium-hide=” av-small-hide=” av-mini-hide=” av-medium-font-size=” av-small-font-size=” av-mini-font-size=”]
[/av_textblock]
[av_one_full first min_height=” vertical_alignment=” space=” custom_margin=” margin=’0px’ padding=’0px’ border=” border_color=” radius=’0px’ background_color=” src=” background_position=’top left’ background_repeat=’no-repeat’ animation=”]
[av_heading heading=’MY LIFE AS ART ‘ tag=’h3′ style=’blockquote modern-quote’ size=” subheading_active=’subheading_below’ subheading_size=’15’ padding=’10’ color=” custom_font=” av-medium-font-size-title=” av-small-font-size-title=” av-mini-font-size-title=” av-medium-font-size=” av-small-font-size=” av-mini-font-size=” admin_preview_bg=”]
BY PETER SOLIS NERY
[/av_heading]
[av_textblock size=” font_color=” color=” av-medium-font-size=” av-small-font-size=” av-mini-font-size=” admin_preview_bg=”]
XXXI. PITY
THE MUSICAL Miss Saigon is the modern retelling of Madama Butterfly, an operatic adaptation of a French novel Madame Chrysantheme, about a woman waiting for her man who never comes home.
*
Silent tears streamed from Dulce’s face as she continued telling her story to Matt.
I don’t know what happened.
It was as if I were hypnotized.
What if he does not come back?
What if he returns and doesn’t see you, or doesn’t want to be with you?
What if he already has a wife?
Dulce dried her tears with the back of her hand.
She took the baby from Matt, kissed it lovingly.
She was mad with hopeless hope.
*
I know Emilio will come back for us.
My sweet darling baby, your father will come.
Matt shook his head in pity.
He vaguely remembered a poem by an Ilonggo gay poet who befriended him while he was singing at a bar in Iloilo City.
(Months after that, Matt learned that the poet killed himself by hara-kiri over the go-go dancer lover who left him for a woman.)
*
The poem had a title that sounded something like “Butterfly Spaghetti,” or “Spaghetti a la Butterfly.”
It started by talking about putting passion in preparing spaghetti by cutting the tomatoes and onions with Puccini’s Madama Butterfly opera playing in the background, said something about “illusions dying hard” in the middle, about how “love for a man who never comes home is hopelessly hopeful.”
The best thing to do, the poem said, was to “leave it boiling until the onions stop crying, then stir fry the tomatoes until they bleed the intensity of your feelings.”
Matt only half-remembered the poem so he wasn’t sure whether the poet meant to leave the illusion, or the pasta, boiling.
*
Anyway, the poem ended by serving the dish,
then set your plate and pour the hot sauce over
before you sprinkle Parmesan cheese
like shredded butterfly wings.
*
Matt didn’t really understand the poem then.
Or maybe even until now, but given Dulce’s stubbornness, it felt appropriate to remember it now.
Matt does feel deeply for women who love their men with a love of a patient God, even if those men were total assholes.
(Sounds like a sado-masochistic lover God, but that’s not what Matt meant.) (To be continued)/PN
[/av_textblock]
[/av_one_full]
