Sisimulan ko sa simula. Foremother trudges through Guimaras grasslands, gathers mangoes in a pina leaf basket woven tight as DNA strands. All day, she will carry orbs of gold light under her arm. On Long Island, I carry an eighth of weed in the pocket of my father’s Mets jersey, but the air still smells of salt. Picture the aswang at her first show-and-tell. Exotic; marionette painted with mercury, tongue crowning behind cells of sharp teeth. Why do you smell like that? Little aswang, where are your legs? Don’t be confused when I tell you; somewhere, waiting for me, dancing on a foreign shore to the motions of the moon. The museum exhibit displays found gold, ossified sea shells, bottled beach sand, losing color. My mother swears that the bananas here Just tasted different, hindi mo maintindihan Naynay, I understand America. I understand that a heartbeat can be the heaviest thing you carry. On starless summer nights after school ended, my friend tied a raw chicken leg to a fishing line above the docks of the Port Jefferson pier, pulled writhing blue crabs from gray depths. That’s a good story. She got hooked on codeine. Arrested for loitering. That’s a worse story. In the convenience store, the ghost of my lola haggles with the freckled convenience store clerk over the price of marlboro reds. Outside, a man picks up cans, mumbling about his next fix & the second coming of Jesus, while teenagers blow smoke clouds in the parking lot behind the dumpster where my camp counselor OD’d the summer I left. I wish I knew how to choose new skies over familiar storms. Once, I fucked a man who was gone by sunrise. He asked if I knew any stories with happy endings. The first time my mother saw Manila mangoes at the neighborhood Costco, she sobbed, carrying each small, sweet sun home.
