Hello Friends,
Ina Cariño is a Filipinx American poet and author of Feast (2023). They write about this piece: “I grew up in the Philippines and was surrounded by folk superstitions without knowing they were superstitions; as in, I’d thought of them as facts. After moving to the U.S. at the age of seven, I looked back on my early childhood with more of a removed mindset due to being surrounded by a new culture, new facts, and new environs, all of which negated the superstitions I grew up with. Culture shock aside, I am still fond of the folk stories of my youth — and I am still trying to reconcile the fact of my existence in the diaspora with the magic I used to believe in.”
Enjoy.
Ællen
Ina Cariño is a Filipinx American poet and author of Feast (2023). They write about this piece: “I grew up in the Philippines and was surrounded by folk superstitions without knowing they were superstitions; as in, I’d thought of them as facts. After moving to the U.S. at the age of seven, I looked back on my early childhood with more of a removed mindset due to being surrounded by a new culture, new facts, and new environs, all of which negated the superstitions I grew up with. Culture shock aside, I am still fond of the folk stories of my youth — and I am still trying to reconcile the fact of my existence in the diaspora with the magic I used to believe in.”
Enjoy.
Ællen
Everything is Exactly the Same as it Was the Day Before
mama says: long noodles, long life,
so I slurp them loud, drink gingery
broth—polka-dot beads of sweat
forming as my nose hovers over
the soup’s steam. circles for luck.
circles on my dress. papa says:
make a lot of noise! so the children
bang on pots & pans to hush
yesterday’s demons. later, in the cold,
the family plods up the hill to wonder
at the fireworks, sky like a warzone lit
with spraying flames from Roman Candles—
fire on the ground from Watusi whips snaking
& coiling, sizzling our feet.
I feel it all in my chest—
a drumming,
a warning, a spell.
back in the yard, granny doles out rice
& meat, pineapple liquor, glass bottles
of Sprite. but I am snoring by midnight,
my sisters & I still swathed in red chiffon.
by morning, I cry because I missed it.
I cry because they say I’m not alone.
I cry because home is a warning,
its pulse a whiff of flint in the dark.
■
mama says: long noodles, long life,
so I slurp them loud, drink gingery
broth—polka-dot beads of sweat
forming as my nose hovers over
the soup’s steam. circles for luck.
circles on my dress. papa says:
make a lot of noise! so the children
bang on pots & pans to hush
yesterday’s demons. later, in the cold,
the family plods up the hill to wonder
at the fireworks, sky like a warzone lit
with spraying flames from Roman Candles—
fire on the ground from Watusi whips snaking
& coiling, sizzling our feet.
I feel it all in my chest—
a drumming,
a warning, a spell.
back in the yard, granny doles out rice
& meat, pineapple liquor, glass bottles
of Sprite. but I am snoring by midnight,
my sisters & I still swathed in red chiffon.
by morning, I cry because I missed it.
I cry because they say I’m not alone.
I cry because home is a warning,
its pulse a whiff of flint in the dark.
■