Author: Luisa A. Igloria

Naming things, we can begin to feel
attached to them. Once we form their 
names in our mouths, it's as if any 
previous speechlessness finds a tarmac 
from which to take off. A destination 
is implied; a state, or a substance. 
The solidity of landing. But in truth, 
everything— namer and named or unnamed— 
is ephemera. Dust from the universe,
dewdrop condensed on the blade of a leaf
early in the morning. After you were born,
I looked into your eyes and for a moment
felt like falling into an ancient vastness.
How vast we are too, and also how small.

Five of us meet at a restaurant— it used to be popular
for pastries but is now the place for bourbon, burger 

nights, and pizza. It's happy hour so everything, 
including cocktails, is twenty per cent off. Henry V 

says in Shakespeare's play: Therefore, my lords, omit no
happy hour/ That may give furtherance to our expedition. 

In the early 1900s, sailors in the U.S. Navy began 
to designate certain happy hours for entertainment, 

for relieving their tedium at sea. The stoics defined 
happiness as living in agreement with Nature, which 

to them meant conforming to the providential scheme of 
the universe: aligning one's choices with the perfection 

of reason, which results in virtue. One of us tells 
the story of a friend who's been in one of those twelve-

step programs where they're asked to "drop the rock"— 
let go of all that stands in the way of sobriety 

and personal growth. This friend, she reports, keeps 
both dogs and chickens. Sometimes, the dogs open 

their mouths and pounce on the chickens. Then he yells 
Drop the chicken! Drop the chicken! But he also said 

nowadays he feels lighter; even happy. There are more
than a hundred ways to carry a thing and as many 

ways to hold on to it— to feel the weight of stones 
in our pockets as we wade in the water, or the gag 

of feathers in our mouths. But in the end, there's 
only one way to let it go: by putting it down. 

What will become of our thoughts 
stopped in their tracks, suspended 
in syrupy heat or nailed to the floor 
in the deathlike cold? Will the soft 
bodies of snails slice open before they 
can melt; will the octopus breed fail to last 
the years required for their hatching and their 
mothers' arms cook into rubbery urns on the grill 
of the ocean bed? The future ticks its out-of-tune 
hours. Inside the cool marble vaults of mansions, 
a taxidermied history hangs on the walls. Pelts 
of animals tuft the floors and couches— bear 
and raccoon, gazelle and leopard; the marbled
brilliance of their omniscient eyes. 

"The only language
         I have
             is Language."
                     - Robin Coste Lewis


For as long as we can, we want to hold
the image that flares beneath our eyelids—

The same kind of irresolvable desire
behind all the attempts to save what we can 

in the face of certain extinction. Last week
I saw an early 20th century closet recreated in

a museum room: an umbrella of mauve printed silk 
with a clear lucite handle; a pair of lace-up boots 

with kitten heels. On the bedroom vanity, a black 
pillbox hat. In the bath, a tin of Epsom salts 

and a box that housed a bar of Ivory soap. Two 
nightgowns of white muslin behind the door. Close 

your eyes and you might imagine the shape of a body 
climbing into bed, clasping its hands together.

"Here's to your coffins—
May they be made of hundred-year-old oaks
which we shall plant tomorrow."
                          - Irish toast



Across the lake, a gray band of moving clouds 
sieves rain over vineyards. From where you sit
this summer afternoon, there's no evidence 
of the great labor that must have gone into 
the cultivation and harvest— just row after 
perfect row of vines and trellises; and inside 
the winery, bottles gleaming on every shelf: sweet, 
semi-sweet, dry. Later, when your brother-in-law jumps 
in the water for a swim, his dog whimpers. The dog follows 
him all over the house with a ball in his mouth, begging 
to play catch. Must be what it's like to have a kid,
he says. The night before leaving your separate ways
for home, you all sit around the picnic table outside.
The fridge must be emptied of everything you brought
and the cottage cleaned for the next group of occupants
(who complained about dog hair, the last time). Party
music drifts from one of the docks nearby, and 
the sound of a boat engine. Don't keep swirling 
the wine in your glass instead of drinking it; 
look at all those gnats hovering for a taste. 

The blue and yellow trampoline float 
is upside down in the water, a few 
feet away from the dock. High winds 
from a day before did that. But it's 
still weighted down by its anchor. 
If I could swim I might help go out 
to right it. Instead we sit on plastic 
chairs as the sun goes down and flocks 
of geese honk in the traffic of their 
own making before they take to the sky. 
The surface of the lake reflects sound and
light like a mirror— like shining from shook
foil. The path back to the cottage is marked 
with feathers and stubs of deep green droppings. 

Over lunch, I listened to the teacher's
story about coming out of a terrible year 
of postpartum depression, and how it led her
to beekeeping. As it is when we are learning 
something new, there were mistakes. In her case, 
she was stung so many times, but each time 
seemed almost a revelation—  the burn and welt, 
the sharp, hot swelling somehow the body's way 
of saying You're still here, you can feel things; 
you haven't turned to stone. In a fairy tale, 
an entire castle's occupants are delivered from 
enchantment when a queen bee helps the quester 
figure out which of three sleeping princesses 
is the youngest— settling on the one whose 
lips were ambered by the last sweet thing 
she ate. You might have heard the sound
of walls stretching, overflowing. 

Were you, too, born for the job? One
foot before the other, remembering 

every so often to straighten your spine? 
And is it merely weakness to give up 

this month's collection of worldly goods 
only to fall in love with the heart-

shaped leaves in a plant store window, cunning 
holographic tiles (only plastic, but still) 

that fold and collapse into a purse? The world 
is going to pieces but maybe we could finish 

a few of the projects we promised we'd 
complete. At least we tell ourselves that, 

as we get out of bed to the sun's applause 
and drawn curtains eclipse the long dark. 

grant

a star

its anger

earn

a range

garner

aster

How much clearer does it need to be? 

Almost every day now, flood warnings.   
Sidewalks stipple with crepe myrtle

blooms after each hard rain; then
 
the trunks of trees start exfoliating.
In the Himalayas, a glacier lake bursts,
 
emptying into the valleys below. Unlike
some animals around whose necks we've

managed to string bells, catastrophe rarely

announces its arrival. When you startle from
sleep, your brain is a balloon that gradually

leaks helium before drifting to the floor. 

All the people walking among the topiary 
in period costumes have disappeared.