Two Poems by Jim Pascual Agustin

The Ghosts of Fukushima

They are tired of running toward

ever-receding hills, clinging to lamp posts

soft as young shoots of bamboo,

waving to people who have taken

and YouTubed their jittery footage.

They have come to live

in the corners of your house

where you hang your clothes.

They drink from the tap

you left dripping in the bathroom.

If you revisit photo albums

you haven't touched for years,

you will see them standing

behind people you know.

Their breath, static

on your cellphone.

They speak to you

in the language

of radiant green waters.

From under your bed

fingernails glow. Just before

you fall asleep a pillow

is swallowed by a floor

of rampaging waves.

Land of Wolves

They lick bitter water

from green mouths of wells

laced with wormwood.

They pad through classrooms

and nurseries, pawing at books

and milk powder tins.

They gaze up birdless trees

that have grown between

abandoned rescue vehicles.

Sometimes they wander in apartment

blocks, up staircases littered

with leaves, documents and photographs.

These wolves do not know how to read

Geiger counters. The dwindling

hunched samosely they encounter can.

Jim Pascual Agustin writes and translates poetry in Filipino and English. He grew up in the Philippines and now lives in South Africa. His recent poetry collections, released in 2013 by the University of Santo Tomas Publishing House, are Kalmot ng Pusa sa Tagiliran and Sound Before Water. His blog is www.matangmanok.wordpress.com