Hossannah Asuncion

Contributor
Hossannah Asuncion

Hossannah Asuncion is a Filipino poet and the author of Object Permanence (Magic Helicopter Press, 2016), winner of the Ted Hawkins Innovative Poetry Prize. The recipient of prizes and fellowships from Kundiman, The Laundromat Project and the Poetry Society of America, she works as a professor at Borough of Manhattan Community College and lives in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, with her wife and child.

Cultural Cringe

Image of various foods

You learn right away to leave a part of yourself at home. You fear that if you stand too close to others, they'll smell last night's pinakbet lingering in your hair. Yes, it was your favorite, and yes, you ate so much of it, and yes, when you came home from school you would reach into the Frigidaire seeking it. But no, to any public reveal of your home life to others.