Figure with Stars (1933), Joan Miró

Tricks

and my children became ghouls 

flitting between the veil of night,

that year, they were in Betelgeuse,

handing out candy to the unabsolved, 

the vampires, the crones, the aliens, 

and the warlocks who sang in German

for a treat, and by our balcony standing 

guard, the pumpkins we carved, gourds  

glowing with ungodly smiles

to turn away the travelling souls, 

and my mother, thousands of miles away 

is lighting candles for the real dead— 

her parents and her brothers, 

my cousins unfolding memories 

of our other cousins and uncles 

in a card game by their graves, 

and so do our aunts as they clutch the rosary, 

beads of prayer dripping into that day

when they were children gathered by a fire,

roasting a pig on the 40^th day their ancestor

died, the elders stirring pots of stories 

into vermicelli, and the world 

was still real—the dirt, and the storms, 

and the sickness, and the ghosts, and the sea, 

and the fire, and the people, and the trees.

---

RYAN CAIDIC is a Filipino writer and advertising creative director living in Denmark. His poetry has been published in anthologies and journals across the US and Europe. He won first in London’s inaugural Bermondsey Literary Festival, second in the 2024 Spring Onyx Poetry Prize, was highly commended in the 2023 Wales Poetry Award and shortlisted for many honors including the 2024 Peseroff Prize and 2024 Bridport Prize. His debut collection, 50 Ways Home, is forthcoming from Fernwood Press (US).

Return to Online Exclusives