my father tells me my angkong is a communist but

the tap water flows tonight we sit under halogen lamps the searing scent of teh guan yin melting into air my father tells me to be careful of his father not to believe the propaganda he reads in the chinese newspaper each morning you are filipino he says angkong sips his tea the gravel in his throat reverberating throughout his darkened sala behind him hang portraits of his children i notice my father's american degree out of all his siblings he most resembles his father angkong switches on the TV the anchor speaks in a language i was never taught a singular man facing rows of tanks is shot on screen a red flag goes up angkong's hands brush my own his skin is drying paper powdered with the dust of his baba's ashes with darkened ink of the anglicized syllables he rehearsed every night for the past seventy-eight years his voice cracks like the bullets of rain of a philippine monsoon your tea is getting cold