© 2023 by Ina Cariño

  All rights reserved

  Printed in the United States

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Alice James Books are published by Alice James Poetry Cooperative, Inc.

  Alice James Books

  Auburn Hall

  60 Pineland Drive, Suite 206

  New Gloucester, ME 04260

  www.alicejamesbooks.org

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Cariño, Ina, author.

  Title: Feast / Ina Cariño.

  Other titles: Feast (Compilation)

  Description: New Gloucester, ME : Alice James Books, 2023

  Identifiers: LCCN 2022034209 (print) | LCCN 2022034210 (ebook) ISBN 9781948579315 (trade paperback) | ISBN 9781949944273 (epub)

  Subjects: LCGFT: Poetry.

  Classification: LCC PS3603.A74775 F43 2023 (print) | LCC PS3603.A74775 (ebook) DDC 811/.6—dc23/eng/20220808

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022034209

  LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022034210

  Alice James Books gratefully acknowledges support from individual donors, private foundations, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Amazon Literary Partnership. Funded in part by a grant from the Maine Arts Commission, an independent state agency supported by the National Endowment for the Arts.

  Cover art: Photo Illustrations by Clarisse Provido; Photography by Yanran Xiong

  CONTENTS

  takipsilim Bitter Melon

  Soiled

  Lean Economy

  Milk

  Triptych with Cityscape

  What Does Death Feel Like Coming from a Woman?

  Feast

  When They Gleam, When They Clatter

  Shingles

  Watch Animals Closely for Strange Behavior

  ulan Terrible Bodies

  I Sing Despite the Tender Stench Outside

  my childhood is a country of thieves—

  Snapshots of Girl with Galaxy of Spiders Drowning in Sopas

  When I Sing to Myself, Who Listens?

  Intake

  You Dream of Saints

  Yesterday’s Traumas, Today’s Salt

  Rice

  To the Boy Who Walks Backwards Everywhere He Goes

  Ritual for Sickness

  Makahiya

  balintataw Asocena

  Interdisciplinary

  When a Woman is Ugly

  Piyesta

  when I say hello to the oldest apples

  names are spells, & I have four—

  I dream in a tongue other than my own

  Infinitives

  Perishable

  Chimera

  Birthstone

  Hibiscus Dream No. 4

  It Feels Good to Cook Rice

  Acknowledgments

  BITTER MELON

  balsam pear. wrinkled gourd.

  leafy thing raised from seed.

  pungent goya, ampalaya: cut

  & salt at the sink. spoon pulp

  from bumpy rind, brown half-moons

  in garlic & sparking mantika.

  like your nanay did. like your lola did.

  like your manang braving hot parsyak—

  you’ll wince. you’ll think of the taste

  of your own green body—mapait

  ang lasa. your sneer. masakit, dugo’t

  laman. it hurts, this smack of bitter.

  yes you’ll remember how much it hurts,

  to nick your thumb as you bloom heat

  in acid, sili at sukang puti—to grow up

  glowering in half-light—to flesh out

  & plod through your own grassy way,

  unfurl your own crush of vines.

  after you tip it onto a mound

  of steamed rice, as you chew,

  the barb of it will hit the back

  of your throat. look at yourself,

  square. you used to snarl at moths,

  start small blazes in entryways.

  woodchip fires, flaking paint.

  look, tingnan mo—see your lip

  curling in the glint of your bowl.

  unruly squash. acrid vegetable,

  you’ll flinch. you’ll want to see

  nothing, taste like nothing. but

  when you disappear your meal—

  when you choke on the last

  chunky morsel of rice—you’ll slurp

  thirsty for more—a saccharine life.

  huwag mo akong kalimutan,

  you’ll plead—

  taste me.

  taste me.

  SOILED

  with scrimshaw-handled comb,

  double-sided butterfly, mama tends

  to my hair—rakes fine-toothed wood

  scarlet across my scalp, its spine

  carved with peonies dappled gold.

  the instrument glides easy enough

  through oil-slicked locks, to sift

  kuto: head lice, scourge of parents,

  of every grade school classroom.

  it is a collaborative effort, slow

  hunt shared in swathes of sun

  streaming past ikat curtains.

  we count crawling parasites.

  we pick the eggs with thumbnails,

  liquid bug bodies still unformed.

  edge pressed to keratin edge—

  pop!—until the sacs burst & spray.

  tiny teardrops, harmless.

  sometimes, there is blood.

  soon our lunar cuticles are dotted

  with my own wet crimson.

  //

  I want to smear the same ruby shade

  on my lips, jewel-chintz glinting

  even at night. I want to click

  down stairs, down sidewalks—

  heels four inches high & cigarette-thin.

  mama says I’m too young.

  I still reek of playgrounds

  at dusk, still rub heads with kids

  whose kili-kili drip sweat

  from scampering down alleyways,

  past neighborhood sari-sari stores,

  their cheap wares beckoning:

  berry-colored Chinese Haw Flakes,

  homemade lychee ice pops,

  bags of chicharron for soaking

  in suka at sili. my mouth

  still withers pula, raisin-like

  after sucking on the last

  soggy pork rind—acid lifting skin,

  edges curled. I suck & suck:

  little louse puckering.

  //

  mama says I’ll bleed soon.

  nights, before bed, we read chapters

  from a book naming things

  that sound celestial—

  cervix, vulva. labia majora.

  she points on a diagram to a nub

  in the middle, above an opening—

  small guava pip waiting to grow.

  I tell her I’m not afraid of red.

  I’d skinned my knees before, felt plenty

  strong when punched square in the gut

  after calling a boy bobo, pangit.

  putangina mo, he’d said, your mother

  is a whore—& his fist hit swift,

  trying to go straight through me.

  I didn’t even buckle. mama laughs,

  whispers, women bleed together. no secret:

  but I feel myself untethering, just as cord

  was cut from womb—curse passed

  down from daughter to daughter,

  to daughter to daughter.

  LEAN ECONOMY

  I pop tins of the greasiest luncheon meat open,

  slather my chin with animal salt: asymmetrical

  to the story of that soldier whose pinky fingers

  were cut off in the war. want versus want.

  real love is when you loot a crate of lard-filled cans,

  throw it into the Pacific to feed your ancestors.

  in this oily paradigm we learn to glut ourselves

  on marrow. they say it’s a shame I subsist

  on scraps. where do you shop for food? show me

  someone who won’t argue that there’s nothing

  sentimental in this world, as if bastard histories

  don’t crave undoing. in exchange I’ll show you how

  to nourish yourself. lift your grandmother’s knife.

  slice through the fattest layer in your gut & eat.

  MILK

  a brown sister told me someone told her white people smell like milk

  so I took a good long whiff of one brought him home with me

  let him sleep in my bed he kept me safe kept me from lonely

  so I kept him from spoiling from curdling kept him

  at night he dripped milk into me my fingers gripping his bony limbs

  my brown awash in milk rinsed & cooled I slurped it up

  maybe he loved me but only as white boys love guavas

  from a warm country pink-soft insides fragrant other

  maybe I loved him but only as a brown girl loves a white thing

  a so-called pure thing makintab a shiny lie one day

  I met his onion-skin mother his candle-stump father we talked

  about Asia you know that giant country onion-mother said

  my English was great no accent! candle-father said I looked exotic

  are you—Polynesian? they may as well have asked what it’s like

  to wake up smelling like dung like tarantulas burnt rice

  or flies in summer heat smelling like mon soon mildew mud

  stink bugs circling instead they asked if I’d tried dog asked

  if I’ve ever once burned rice because I must be so good at it

  I don’t need a recipe they all laughed so later that night

  I took my white boy to my lola’s house pulled down a jar

  of black vinegar sukang itim dipped my tongue in it kissed him

  you shoulda seen his pale face go see-through chalk dissolving

  reverse alchemy now when I talk of white people I tell my brown sister

  baho they stink of milk so I let mine go

  she still shakes her head at me says bobo why are you so stupid

  says I was lucky to be so close to one who smells of milk

  but when milk turns sour ferments blooms fetid under the nose

  the only thing to do is pour it down the drain

  TRIPTYCH WITH CITYSCAPE

  Chicago, 2008

  1.

  in sweetrot city air

  I swallow pills

  for happy—

  forget how to be a living

  thing.

  my body’s slow

  decay smells

  of the fusty crush

  of creatures jostling at dusk—

  men & women

  crowding

  the L as a charm of finches

  flits

  overhead. in the hospital,

  watching the news,

  building briefly ablaze

  where people push hands daily

  into fragrant:

  mustard,

  coriander,

  cumin—seeds

  to fill gaps in my teeth.

  2.

  I’m a different kind of brute from what the man on the train thought—

  me facing the window as he asked

  how’d you get your hair to be so straight?

  his reflection in plexiglass—dull form warped, grin crooked, coat

  stained with booze & upchuck. he stammered confused

  when I turned—but I was all mum-smiles

  as I got off at Hyde Park, where shiny condos swallowed shoddy brick.

  yes, I

  always smile—even

  after papa scooped me up from the psych ward

  after Thanksgiving.

  he warned me of a mother’s shame, & I nodded.

  but I told him—

  if you find me on a sidewalk, head in a puddle under a streetlamp,

  oil seeping into my sorry mouth—

  help me stand. tell me again

  of my mother & her name—

  so that I might lift myself from concrete, shuck off

  my pallid skin, & inhale—

  exhale.

  3.

  I am lucky: my pulse mimics the slap

  of sandals in gutter ponds where a child plays

  under the spout of a hydrant. mornings,

  I rise to windwhistle shrill between buildings.

  Saturdays I slurp rice noodles, tofu skin,

  in Chinatown—patina of hoisin sticky

  under tongue. & nights, before burrowing

  into sleep, I loose my hair from its flaccid coil.

  so if I don’t wake if I fester lifeless

  in my own muck, into feelers feasting—

  it’s because I’ve coddled my yearnings,

  left my body spoiling in noonday heat: the kind

  that leaves a mark even on the darkest part of me.

  WHAT DOES DEATH FEEL LIKE COMING FROM A WOMAN?

  I walked before I crawled, refused

  to splay limbs across dusty rugs,

  & when yaya pinched my feet

  I never flinched. then 1991—

  mountain ashes cloudcrept into me

  from Pinatubo’s maw. my lungs

  turned to wrinkled quinces,

  while outside, lahar charred earth—

  landscape raked, scorched

  by encanto: a sylvan woman.

  //

  so mama said no running, afraid

  for me: shriveled lansones, sickly.

  threat of skinned shins. cherry

  glow of lola’s clove cigarettes,

  smoke plumes sealing my throat.

  or on my cheeks, plum rashes

  blooming from playing in witch-

  willow. these days, I don’t run much.

  but I was only seven when I broke

  a girl’s front teeth. was I cruel

  //

  I’d thought to take her for my wife.

  she found a boy instead. so I bury myself

  as star seed from caimito, always

  under a scarlet dusk, as if pain makes me

  special. as if the world knows I’ve only

  been with men. I braid garlands

  of a history I convince myself is real,

  thread them jealous through my lover’s hair.

  I’d like someone to take me for her wife.

  I always end up with a boy.

  //

  when I kiss a man in the park, fumble

  awkward with his belt, I always finish.

  I think I’ve grown up. mornings,

  I touch myself, watch in the mirror

  so I can pretend. still, my bones knock

  unfamiliar in my rind—withering husk,

  heaving. nights, I dream of woman,

  a toothless diwata. she peels me

  into scraps. siniguelas pip. cruel

  damson stone. bruised remains: uneaten.

  FEAST

  I watch the slaughter—two men

  drag a suckling, roped & squealing

  across cement. I am five today,

  hair tied in pigtails with ribbons,

  barrettes in the shape of cherries

  dangling at the ends. I scrunch

  my eyes as they slit the hide—

  pink bristle, wiry infant flesh—

  can’t help but gape at guts

  that reek of insides I knew only

  from dreams: gamey meat of mother,

  ventricle & vein ancient openings

  waiting for the gush of new blood.

  lolo says to eat is to be animal—

  so they roast the little boar,

  its skin turning crackling by fire.

  when uncles lay it out on the table,

  palm leaf platter underneath,

  lolo takes a knife to its tongue

  sticking out like dusk-red petal

  from banana blossom. in a room

  full of sweaty cousins, aunties floating

  in chiffon, & maids hovering cautious

  in the background to sweep up crumbs,

  I stand in the center starched

  white dress loosely sheathing my frame.

  for the gift of good speech, lolo proclaims,

  & he slips cooked muscle

  into my mouth, as if talking

  were the means to something

  only adults know. for dessert

  I sit on mama’s lap, & we feast

  on buttery things: custard-yellow

  brazo de mercedes, cream

  of cashew sans rival, eggy yema

  glazed with candied caramel.

  from the back of my mouth, a splash

  of bile washes my cheeks & soon

  I can’t tell sweet from bitter, can’t

  remember how to swallow salt

  the way a suckling in slaughter

  must swallow its own briny tears.

  WHEN THEY GLEAM, WHEN THEY CLATTER

  your first loose milk tooth snapped from wiry gumvein

  wet pearl tumbling into palm as you stood in the garden

  you’d pulled & pulled till tissue tendril untethered & clumpy clots

  seeped crimson ink blotting your bottom lip

  you thought this is what it’s like to bleed to pour out to press

  detached incisor onto finger pads grubby

  you cradle-cupped the fang in jam hands put it in a jar rattled it

  ringing to fluster the maya chirping in the durian tree

  but lolo snatched the thing hid it under rafters for luck

  you shrieked trilled indignant but he just laughed

  nights after a dream of molars falling from your mouth

  & you recalled the old warning: when you dream

  of rotting teeth chew on old wood or someone you love

  will pass away but you told no one sneered sour

  at broom handles used matches lola’s cracked rosary

  its beads carved from an olive tree that once grew in Bethlehem

  soon lolo took ill his canines jutted tips protruding like aswang

  ashen & when he died moths clustered over his casket

  ghostly bouquet this is what it’s like to kill to cause to die

  to snuff a life quick & you recalled the old saying:

  when white moths gather the dead flutter among them

 

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