continued rescuing a
train wreck
            refusing
for a head wound
sole survivor of a smallpox epidemic on a
drifting into an island
             some proof that congressmen drank aboard a
             to Panama
bound and gagged as the gang
             a string of 213 perfect pearls
employer committed him a decision deemed
forty years later a likely
in search of a jewel
             after midnight the women of Freeport wanted
to their husbands
sponsored by a discharged
             chaplain
             at the St. Alphonsus Church Fair
instead of leaving the
quarters knocked a
             to the ground
a leper forced onto the
             with 124 horses and mules requisitioned for the
             quartermaster
denied
             his employer’s clothing
seeing a bruised
                         on the stairs
in her bare feet. Saw
                         acts.
employer may have
             her into a room and
                         the door. Said a
freedwoman and fellow
             also shipped by the
to the islands and back but
                          in doubt about her own birth
                          and the meaning of perjury
passed out in a
room from gas
             but
enough to sail the next day
committee on
             and janitors ordered to decide
                           or white?
buoyed by a news article    
             his employer searching for him
             fled the revolutionaries and
                           sought
                           at the legation
boasted of
             to a local woman, sparking heated
             at the barracks
left Fort Bliss
             beaten
entered his employer’s
caught her hands as she
clad in a shapeless
             and raw grass
             jacket
             followed her
             through Honolulu, unimpressed

Author's Note: “Service Observances” is my take on Teju Cole’s “Small Fates”: short news portrayals of African modernity that, in turn, reinterpret the French literary form, fait divers. It draws from U.S. newspapers from 1898-1922 that mention Filipino domestic servants as minor players in events occurring in the continental United States, Hawai`i, the Philippines, and on U.S. military transport ships. An additional source is the Willard Suitcase Exhibit Online (www.suitcaseexhibit.org). This poem will be published as part of a manuscript, Solitude Being Alien, by Dancing Girl Press.