"Ode to Lakapati" by Ina Cariño
Ode to Lakapati
a “figure of man and woman all together” —Vocabulario de la lengua tagala, 1613 mornings, I braid wet black hair quick & taut after bathing. the health of flock & herds depends on the rain. I’ve met those wooden figures, both male & female sleepy in granaries. say, water—say loving words like fish, fruit, fowl. my body is not a museum—rather, a site of excavation. fields at planting time: the balance of everything. artifacts abound: wordless songs while washing rice. Lakapati, feed your servants—let them not starve. & the origins of my hair? my gender? my praise & jargon? (s)he was a goddess, s(he) was a king. see my grandfather’s Spanish-blue eyes—slick marbles spinning. deities tend to disappear upon first contact. I still ask for permission, walking over grass & roots. on full moons, offerings of herbs to stave off hunger. I am hungry, even when I eat. will I ever be full such binaries—rife with oppression, thievery, forgetfulness— neither male nor female; both masculine & feminine. smallest unhusked grain of rice—masculine, feminine whole. Originally published in Bellingham Review
Ina Cariño is a FilAm writer, musician, and visual artist with a 2022 Whiting Award for poetry. Their work appears in Foglifter Journal, The American Poetry Review, The Margins, Guernica, Poetry Magazine, Poetry Northwest, New England Review, and elsewhere. She is a Kundiman fellow and the winner of the 2021 Alice James Award for Feast, published by Alice James Books in 2023. Reverse Requiem, their most recent collection, was released in April 2026 (Alice James Books).
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