Author: Luisa A. Igloria

in the heart of noon
the sun on a swallow

flying over the marketplace—
quick shimmer carried on

a dark leaf of passing
the way clear blue

and yellow apothecary bottles
on a high shelf at last

confess they carry more
than their presumed

emptiness— even the bird
knows about the luminous

green stone lying
at the bottom of long-

necked despair
how gradually it rises

so the mouth could pluck it
out of its collected waters

 

In response to Via Negativa: High and low.

In this solitude
count the strips peeling
away from trees like shadows.

In this interval
a calculus of petitions
and flocks of unsent letters.

Above this well
an aperture of fitful light
calibrating the upward climb.

In each street
row after row
of homesick windows.

~ after Sohrab Sepehri

 

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

I practiced three hours a day
until I thought I imagined church
bells prismed over the city.

Donkeys in the square,
carts bumping over cobblestones.
Dust rising everywhere

as though an animal with dark
hooves stomped through the plaza
and into our yards

where in the mornings, our mothers
clipped damp ivory sheets in a line
with wooden clothespins.

 

In response to Via Negativa: Stuck.

then heat,
then flare
of gold
in a fearless
line from heel
of boot
to the darker
throat of night

 

In response to Via Negativa: In praise of fire.

Deep in the freezer, a ziplock bag:
thin petals of dried fish overlap;
sun-gold sheen dulled, crimped slightly
at the edges. We bought them in the market
in Cebu, choosing from a stall: piled high
on baskets, threaded on strings; skeleton-
brittle, nearly. When I get a craving
I float them in hot oil, in a small pan
with a lid. I keep the lid on, open it
only when I’ve taken it outside on the deck,
where the steeped salt smells can exhale
in the cold air and not cling to the drapes,
upholstery, sheets in every room. Passing
through customs the last time we traveled,
next to jam jars and bags of coffee,
they lay quiet in their wrappers— Not
anymore fish but the essence of fish,
little pharaohs unearthed from their paper
boats. Looking the officer in the eye:
I have nothing of value to declare.

After the first twenty miles, the road narrowed unexpectedly.

In the median, yellow tractors were pulling out the last remnants of trees.

There was some consultation of the map in order to readjust the route.

The meeting room was in a lower level of the clubhouse; there were no windows.

Two coffee urns: black lid for regular, orange for decaf.

The sun shone where golfers braved the cold.

In the room, the president periodically asked people to speak louder.

At lunch, members were seated in random groups around soups and salads.

A woman took notes; some talk circled around the words contest and website and recuse.

Pink and yellow flyers were distributed.

Only one man from the local university left his on the table when the meeting adjourned.

 

In response to Via Negativa: Cooked.

How did you do it, asks the child
who issued from your body. She

herself now has a child who is sick,
has caught his first cold; and she

is sick with worry. You look back
at those times as through a window

streaked with rain or fog. Or you are
coaxing someone to believe

yes it is OK to cross
the glass bridge that spans

the terrifying chasm. You gave up
trying to avoid steamed buns

filled with pork and shredded cabbage,
sticky rice boiled in coconut milk,

the allure of green
mangos with salted shrimp.

When you were tired you ate
in order to trick sleep.

But you couldn’t give up taking
mental notes of what drifted

your way by earshot: talk
in elevators, tearful confessions

above white tablecloths
too proud of their freedom

from crumbs. Also, you wanted nothing
more than to finish stacks of half-

read novels. In college you’d come
across the phrase the life of the mind—

No one told you then you couldn’t have it
without living in the body. This body.

How the bright thoughts came
like flashes of light through those

windows, while you chewed on a pencil
end. While the babies drowsed in your arms.

“…Forgiveness
is a lizard squirming”

~ Javier Zamora

In a box, we find some of the last
letters she wrote to us: thin paper
we called onion skin, blue inkblots
every few lines. She said sometimes
she wrote them at the post office,
standing at the counter: umbrella
in one hand, stamp at the ready.
We don’t get them anymore— tarsiers
with coffee bean eyes, a volcano’s
perfect cone; silhouettes of out-
rigger canoes at sunset. Where we walk
in this neighborhood, towering magnolias.
We remember the ones in the neighbor’s yard
across from our gate— how the eldest
daughter would bring some half-open
blooms to her, and she’d place them
in a bowl of water. In the morning,
their scent a heavy damask
over everything in the room.

 

In response to Via Negativa: Black site.

We were told not to name
our children after the ones
who died violently

or young; or if we did,
to tuck those names
in the smallest follicle,

then quietly sew up
the seed. Walking around
among others, then,

we’re forced to remember
how bodies tilt without
warning—

how the fruit we counted
grew soft in the orchard;
how lanterns held the last

of their copper light,
drifting into the sky’s
outer margins.

 

In response to Via Negativa: Dissident.

The neighborhood app barks
an alert on our phones:

someone’s been caught
on video doorbell tipping

trash bins over then
running away; no clear

record of his face— only the bright
red sweatshirt, the cargo shorts.

During the holidays, a man went
from door to door stealing

Christmas wreaths with gold
decorations. The yips

sound so lifelike; icicles gleam
where they bristle from porch eaves.