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2022 Academy of American Poets Prize

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tadasana

by Kalani Padilla

 

immigrant girl mix-matches liquids in the pot, stirs, serves. mistakes the mirin for the rice vinegar. wonders if the costco on the clark fork sells oxtail. Immigrant girl makes new ears for hearing lullabies, even those that are not sung between these mountains.2 immigrant girl answers “I don’t know” to questions about grandmother.1 gets older each time. immigrant girl burrows a passage from unhome to unhome everyday and on the way to school becomes herself a passage. wonders earnestly why the “freshest off the boat” would be the most undesirable. smells her armpits shaves her legs sharpens her tongue splits herself up Chicago style imagines her intended audience carefully on either side of a horizontal line. immigrant scholar is taught “defense” as an interface of discourse between equals, then graduates immigrant scholar is accused (yes, mostly from within) of forgetting something she was not taught. immigrant child imagines wrapping Ilocano around christmas gifts the way grandmother wraps her arm around her little sister’s arm. 2. recalls being a child in the Aloha Stadium parking lot during Swap Meet all alive alive alive with Ilocano. Comprehends that Filipino is not rhetoric. not passage or place. granddaughter is just you standing there.

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