Author: Luisa A. Igloria

I like that there are still delicate things
in the world: moths scattered on the storm
door, their soft brown markings like un- 
finished embroidery. One bit of string 
incense tied into a bow, exuding a warm 
green smell from a greeting card. The light 
hand of the tech who finds the vein in the hollow 
of your elbow joint, drawing out a small vial of blood 
without asking anything more of you. A cloud-
blue mug on which the potter left a dent exactly 
the size of your thumb on one side. An eyelash 
that floated onto your cheek, quiet as a virgule 
breathing between two lines of a poem.  
 

Years into the future, you'll find an almost-
country in streets and houses that have 

vanished, in rotted planks that once held up 
the pier. From a certain spot looking west, 

the sun spilled ink pots of rust and orange.
You could write, on paper, that the light

was beautiful or that after, night broke open
to swallow the ruins. You could write: here

men arrived, preaching their gospel of
advantage, throwing nets over the sides

of their boats to harvest the last of fallen
stars. Touch a finger to broken tile.

Remember an old alphabet, how it used
to live in leatherbound pages or a box 

inlaid with mother-of-pearl. City gates
were built against onrushing waters,

where once people stood exchanging
goodbyes but delaying their actual

departure. Under every archive of what
vanished lies another archive the color

of bleached coral. Ask the weaver 
birds where their home is, as they bend

sticks and straw into shapes their bodies
will fit into. Ask yourself when it is time 

to stand under a tree and shed your clothes, 
waiting to be wrapped up in its arms. 

"You won't find another country, won't find another shore....
there's no ship for you, there's no road."
                                                                                      ~ C.P. Cavafy


Like most things in life, I learned this
too the hard way. I also left— pursuing 
a myth that yielded no streets of gold, no 
green-leafed money trees, no saints 
smiling at the end of a hard shift, handing out
paychecks like halos. I too, traded one city 
for another, then another. Was called traitor, 
ungrateful for the canopy my first home 
provided, though rain coursed down the walls 
like waterfalls. Was accused of wanting more 
than someone like me should desire. And yet 
I'm always asked: when do you think you'll 
be back? I used to have nightmares 
that the roof over our heads was caving in,
or that the next wind would claw at its corners
and peel it back, revealing how we slept 
without clothes, or how we squatted 
at the table to eat. Now there's nothing
there save a mile marker, a taxi stand,
a transient house, an internet café.
The only thing left is feeling, and faded
furniture on a faded rug; portraits of
unknown presidents glimmering 
from what would have been walls. 


                                        

They aren’t bare yet—trees still hold on

to their banners of green, the heat

a palpable collar around

everything. And yet,

the counters begin

to shift—

one more orange

wing lofting south on currents

toward overwintering. One more

graphite mark moving against clear sky,

finding its place in a swelling wave as daylight fades.

"Sakit ng kalingkingan, sakit ng buong katawan."
                                                                ~ Filipino proverb

Pain flares in the smallest joint, outpost almost forgotten, 
calling up a cartography that connects the folds of the little 

finger to weather in the knee. The ankle smells smoke— 
a fire burning in the hinterlands of the brain. Throw cold 

water on it, but night after night, the burning starts again. 
Press on the valley between thumb and index finger. A covey 

of birds thrashes about in your lungs. A figure in a golden hat 
leads a flock of tiny animals across the hinge of the collarbone. 

It taps its staff in the air, embroidering a path to safety. Oh terrible 
atlas, we have no idea what waves slosh up against countries of organs 

bordered by currents of blood. Some are so close, we could open a window 
and see what was served for dinner on the other side. But what armies 

prepare to catapult onslaughts against each other?  A spider 
ladders down the spine, its ball of grief a pellet rolled up in silk.

~ after Bhanu Kapil

Who are you and who paid the hundred
dollar airport fee you didn't expect?

What do you remember about the day
you walked through the door, and if it 
smelled like rain or diesel exhaust?

How will you begin
to piece together a plan for the next
fifteen or fifty years of your life?

Describe the difference between
the face that looked out of the mirror
from autumn last year, and tonight
as the moon drops half  a coin in the sky.

Tell me what you know about hinges.

Where will we go when islands
become dust particles floating 
with no need for ships?

Who was responsible for the suffering
of children before the sound of cities
falling descended into silence?

What is the width of your ribcage?

How would you live, if you were 
allowed to be unlimited?

What are the consequences of pressing
your mouth into the shape of a dirge?

How have you prepared for the death
of your oldest and most exhausted self?

What would you whistle, if you could?

Meaning by chance, unintended.
Meaning, inspired by an occasion.

Or no particular occasion, just
the occasion of the everyday.

Issa wrote about snow
melting, and the dewdrop

world. About a snail inching
up a great mountain.

This is our life, made of small
moments. Hearing the call

of a bird, resonant 
as a bell, longing 

and desire become
indistinguishable.

"Every day is a god, each day is a god."
                                                ~ Annie Dillard

You buy fruit when you can: mangoes, peaches, cherries
for their polislhed crimson globes, pears for their green
dimpled hips. Piled high in bins at the store, apples look 
like they're glowing from within because they've been 
coated with carnauba or candelilla wax. An apple a day 
keeps the doctor away, your mother would chant, washing 
then peeling a Red Delicious apple bought from the post 
exchange market where you could get "Stateside" goods. 
Expensive, but worth it if it would bring your appetite back, 
your health, the health of the one languishing in bed 
from long illness. It's as if a god had put a miracle in
the fruit, or a god was in the fruit itself, waiting for
the merest chance to show its benevolence. If a bruise
darkens the cheek of a peach overnight, if the toilet
on your office floor smells like something died in there
or if the mail brings you alarming test results, are these,
then, also some kind of message from the divine?
Every day, you keep some kind of tally: how many cups
of coffee before noon, how much rain came down to flood
the intersection, who called and left how many voicemails?
Every evening, you rinse the plates after dinner with a soapy
sponge. You draw the blinds close, heat water for tea. 
The car swerving without warning into your lane just
narrowly missed you. You gave a reference for 
a former student. All the things you managed to do
and say Yes to before the day, or the god, shut the door. 

My youngest daughter remembers us
stopping at little hotels during family trips.
She says she feels a certain type of nostalgia
for the free-though-you-know-it’s-not-really-
free breakfasts, where there are waffle machines
you load with batter and flip over. When the beeper
goes off, you pry your breakfast from the gridded
skillet with the tip of a plastic knife and slide it onto
a paper plate. Almost made from scratch, but better
than the sad precooked pancakes in the store’s
freezer section, their taste and texture like the boxes
they’re packed in. “Convenience” is the reason
offered for almost everything “streamlined” or
“deliverable”—meaning speed, meaning you shouldn’t
have to work so hard or spend all day writing memos,
summarizing documents, reading the book, drafting
a first draft. Surveys report that 86% of college
students use AI in school. Fewer adults read books
for pleasure, and only 34% of children said they enjoyed
reading in their free time. Once, a book could be a tent
lit up with a flashlight, the wilderness of night kept
outside with a cosy blanket fort. My colleague told
her literature class to find two examples for each
of the literary terms in their book: simile, metaphor,
metonymy, conflict, rising action, irony. They blinked
and acted stupefied. What do you mean? they said,
as if she’d asked them to separate lentils and pebbles
with dented spoons. Imagine waffles and pancakes
not just landing on conveyor belts, but coming
to you pre-buttered, pre-masticated, stamped
with a complimentary phrase from Shakespeare.

What I mean is
will you read all of it, or
only the first ten pages?

Will you come at it
with a slide rule or a ruler,
or a more abstract measure

of error? Sometimes 
it takes longer to work 
on common mistakes.

The more difficult
to detect are the product
of some kind of subtle

engineering. Harder
to undo, until they are no
longer abstract, or

a fine line has been
crossed, broken, restructured,
embargoed, or banned.