A bumpy reflective surface reflects irregular hexagons of blue, orange, and yellow light

A list of important memories

Keana Aguila Labra


After Gina Apostol

Portrait of notes app / as eclectic collage / wherein I love choosing more than one toy / at the

$0.99 store in Tracy / I gravitate toward cute stuffed toys / or pens / or diaries / I love / having

leftovers from a large meal / fridge bursting at the seam / in what our families / promise is love / I

watch the sunset / and think of ghosts / who wouldn’t be / happy / with the storm brewing inside

/ my palms / a storm / I tend / daily / collage as fragments / meaning I love the wind / as it

caresses / each windmill / and kisses Lola’s flowers / and the hush of papers / from an open

book / fragmentation as memory / because I love the still / between 12am and 1am / right when

my virtual Cebuano class ends / because they’re based in Melbourne / and there’s a time

difference / before I even set down my headphones / I know / Lolo is sleeping. / I step outside to

grab my books / and journal / and Lolo is snoring. / Memory as love / as I tiptoe toward the main

bedroom / stepping over the creaky floorboard, / but never before whispering / goodnight.

Keana Aguila Labra (they/them/she/her) is a Cebuana Tagalog Pilipinx genre & genderfluid poet & writer in diaspora. She works to provide a safe literary space for underserved & underrepresented communities as the co-Editor-in-Chief of literary magazine Marías at Sampaguitas & the co-Founder of the BIPOC/LGBTQIA+ focused publishing press Sampaguita Press. She is also the Assistant Director of the Santa Clara County Youth Poet Laureate Program alongside Director Janice Lobo Sapigao, a fellow of the Kearny Street Interdisciplinary Writer's Lab cohort summer ’21, & served as one of the Honorary Santa Clara County Poets Laureate of Oct. ’21 with Lorenz Mazon Dumuk.