In the future, everyone will know halo-halo
but bilo-bilo will evade fusion menus.
Someone in college will suggest I switch out
Filipino sago for Taiwanese boba, and
every year I bring bilo-bilo to the potluck I’ll learn
it is easier for an American to enter heaven
than to engage with an unfamiliar texture.
But it’s the 90s, and Mochiko is the future.
In the 90s rice flour is made out of rice
Mom soaked all night before borrowing
a colleague’s food processor for office lumpia.
At the center of each pearl is a question—how
well will this dumpling hold up in coconut milk?
Mom wants to know about my pearl’s culture.
Can she feel the grit under her teeth? Which of us
will feel shame if she cuts to the center?