by Victor N. Sugbo

In your mind’s eye,
As you drive me in my car to
A far-off town I have yet to name,

I know I remain to you
All your twenty-two years
A riddle,

A distant mountain spring,
Clouds moving fast in the sky,
Morning breakfast of rice and sweet meat slices

By a roadside resto named after a typhoon,
This Japanese man belting out a bossa song
Over the mp3 player,

The brief stop by the Tolosa road along the blue sea,
The keys and memories and billfold,
My world packed to fill a palm.

You are so quiet behind the wheel
Like the little boy who used to hide
When I called his name;

Young man, traveling without a plan retires
All riddles. It puts to a test your sonhood
And the graying uncle I have become;

It stares us in the face like a mirror;
But the air is so bright and clear
And the raintrees are shaking in the sunshine.

Editor’s Note on To my Nephew Clint:

To my Nephew Clint is not Victor N. Sugbo’s first work to appear in Eastlit. His previous published pieces are:

• Tacloban & Haiyan at Ground Zeroes appeared in Eastlit January 2016.
• Lost Children of Haiyan & Other Poems was in Eastlit May 2016.