A SUM OF PARASITES

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago


To serious thinkers an X unknown
is the sum of financial technocrats
and foreign debtors

but to the paupered lot
the sum means
more tasty diets consisting
of liver flukes
of ascaris
of tuberculosis
of kwashiorkor
of bronchopneumonia
of pinworms
of schistosomiasis

A sum of parasites
is always equal to parasites
and nothing less


[Writ. 04 June 1991, Cubao, Quezon City, M.Manila]