Praise Song with Aftertaste by Gabriela A. Igloria

POETRY

This is how I’ve learned to love the living
beside my dead: I make small mountains of meat

& okra, swipe shrimp paste across a tongue
of green mango, and my mouth praises the tang,

sings pungent for names I’ll never know
beyond an aftertaste. Like ghosts, every family

recipe has an origin story that becomes more
mythlike with each generation. Nourishment,

the easiest language our mouths have learned
to share. Sacredness is steamed rice, soft-

bellied milkfish tender between teeth & tinik.
That is, my mother’s kitchen was my first

cathedral, my grandmothers my patron saints
of salt & fat. We feed the ancestors everything—

a table-length spread of lumpia, shellfish, noodles
on banana leaf. Moments before we devour, our hands

hovering might for an instant look as if we are in
the act of blessing. I am hungry for everything

I do not know how to imagine—fingers crusted
with vinegar, proof of some benediction.

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Gabriela A. Igloria (they/she) is a Filipino American writer and daughter of immigrants. They graduated from Old Dominion University, where they were awarded an Academy of American Poets Award. A 2022 Anaphora Arts fellow, their poems have been featured by Paloma Press and Whurk Magazine, among others. Alongside writing, Gabriela occasionally facilitates creative writing and zine workshops for local community organizations.