Via Negativa

April 6, 2026April 5, 2026 by Luisa A. Igloria

(Lord’s day). Up and spent the morning, till the Barber came, in reading in my chamber part of Osborne’s Advice to his Son (which I shall not never enough admire for sense and language), and being by and by trimmed, to Church, myself, wife, Ashwell, &c. Home to dinner, it raining, while that was prepared to my office to read over my vows with great affection and to very good purpose. So to dinner, and very well pleased with it.
Then to church again, where a simple bawling young Scot preached.
So home to my office alone till dark, reading some papers of my old navy precedents, and so home to supper, and, after some pleasant talk, my wife, Ashwell, and I to bed.

Lord’s day in the mire
by myself

a simple bawling ache
of dark precedents

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 5 April 1663.

April 5, 2026April 5, 2026 by Luisa A. Igloria

Plans and conditions,

river in November light between bare woods and mountain

wills and directives— if this,  

then that. If we're lucky, or
not. Who benefits from certain

actions? Who gains from my love 
of bathing in sunlight, loses

from my habit of pulling up weeds 
with bare hands? I know the cost

of not putting things in order. 
I also know also how impossible 

it is to itemize assets vs. debts,
time spent vs. time held against

future use. Finally, I'm learning
to sort the mail as soon as it

comes, to believe in dreams 
as dreams instead of prophecy—

one springs from the mind
of what can be, and the other

from the mind of what seems
to know what can't be known.

April 4, 2026 by Dave Bonta

Consumer report

Up betimes and to my office. By and by to Lombard street by appointment to meet Mr. Moore, but the business not being ready I returned to the office, where we sat a while, and, being sent for, I returned to him and there signed to some papers in the conveying of some lands mortgaged by Sir Rob. Parkhurst in my name to my Lord Sandwich, which I having done I returned home to dinner.
Whither by and by comes Roger Pepys, Mrs. Turner her daughter, Joyce Norton, and a young lady, a daughter of Coll. Cockes, my uncle Wight, his wife and Mrs. Anne Wight. This being my feast, in lieu of what I should have had a few days ago for my cutting of the stone, for which the Lord make me truly thankful.
Very merry at, before, and after dinner, and the more for that my dinner was great, and most neatly dressed by our own only maid. We had a fricasee of rabbits and chickens, a leg of mutton boiled, three carps in a dish, a great dish of a side of lamb, a dish of roasted pigeons, a dish of four lobsters, three tarts, a lamprey pie (a most rare pie), a dish of anchovies, good wine of several sorts, and all things mighty noble and to my great content.
After dinner to Hide Park; my aunt, Mrs. Wight and I in one coach, and all the rest of the women in Mrs. Turner’s; Roger being gone in haste to the Parliament about the carrying this business of the Papists, in which it seems there is great contest on both sides, and my uncle and father staying together behind. At the Park was the King, and in another coach my Lady Castlemaine, they greeting one another at every tour. Here about an hour, and so leaving all by the way we home and found the house as clean as if nothing had been done there to-day from top to bottom, which made us give the cook 12d. a piece, each of us.
So to my office about writing letters by the post, one to my brother John at Brampton telling him (hoping to work a good effect by it upon my mother) how melancholy my father is, and bidding him use all means to get my mother to live peaceably and quietly, which I am sure she neither do nor I fear can ever do, but frightening her with his coming down no more, and the danger of her condition if he should die I trust may do good.
So home and to bed.

a sandwich for dinner
in a car park

there is a test every day
on how to live

a quiet which neither ear
can ever own

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 4 April 1663.

April 4, 2026April 3, 2026 by Luisa A. Igloria

Still

We go back to the doctor whose name
means either target or stain. Back to 
the room with crinkly paper on the exam 
table, posters on the walls illustrating 
roads connecting the nose to the throat 
and the ear. We are here for results, 
which means consequence or outcome,
or the score after a test. The doctor
says a few new spots, as if he might 
be talking about cafés in town 
or tickets to a sold-out concert.
Small, he says like an afterthought;
just something to watch. But already 
the muscle that anticipates grief 
has awakened again in me. We walk
to the parking garage. Magnolias 
are pinking their branches. Cars honk. 
A guy walks across the street, eyes glued 
to a phone in his hands, oblivious. Almost 
evening but the light is still impossibly 
bright, so we decide to stop for ice  
cream. When we lie down at night, I listen 
to your breathing, tell myself the future 
isn't arriving yet, or all at once.

April 3, 2026 by Dave Bonta

Protecting the homeland

Waked betimes and talked half an hour with my father, and so I rose and to my office, and about 9 o’clock by water from the Old Swan to White Hall and to chappell, which being most monstrous full, I could not go into my pew, but sat among the quire. Dr. Creeton, the Scotchman, preached a most admirable, good, learned, honest and most severe sermon, yet comicall, upon the words of the woman concerning the Virgin, “Blessed is the womb that bare thee (meaning Christ) and the paps that gave thee suck; and he answered, Nay; rather is he blessed that heareth the word of God, and keepeth it.”
He railed bitterly ever and anon against John Calvin, and his brood, the Presbyterians, and against the present term, now in use, of “tender consciences.” He ripped up Hugh Peters (calling him the execrable skellum), his preaching and stirring up the maids of the city to bring in their bodkins and thimbles.
Thence going out of White Hall, I met Captain Grove, who did give me a letter directed to myself from himself. I discerned money to be in it, and took it, knowing, as I found it to be, the proceed of the place I have got him to be, the taking up of vessels for Tangier. But I did not open it till I came home to my office, and there I broke it open, not looking into it till all the money was out, that I might say I saw no money in the paper, if ever I should be questioned about it. There was a piece in gold and 4l. in silver.
So home to dinner with my father and wife, and after dinner up to my tryangle, where I found that above my expectation Ashwell has very good principles of musique and can take out a lesson herself with very little pains, at which I am very glad. Thence away back again by water to Whitehall, and there to the Tangier Committee, where we find ourselves at a great stand; the establishment being but 70,000l. per annum, and the forces to be kept in the town at the least estimate that my Lord Rutherford can be got to bring it is 53,000l.. The charge of this year’s work of the Mole will be 13,000l.; besides 1000l. a-year to my Lord Peterborough as a pension, and the fortifications and contingencys, which puts us to a great stand, and so unsettled what to do therein we rose, and I to see my Lord Sandwich, whom I found merry at cards, and so by coach home, and after supper a little to my office and so home and to bed.
I find at Court that there is some bad news from Ireland of an insurrection of the Catholiques there, which puts them into an alarm.
I hear also in the City that for certain there is an embargo upon all our ships in Spayne, upon this action of my Lord Windsor’s at Cuba, which signifies little or nothing, but only he hath a mind to say that he hath done something before he comes back again.
Late tonight I sent to invite my uncle Wight and aunt with Mrs. Turner to-morrow.

the old bare Christ
on his rood

against present
tender consciences

should be questioned
about his work for insurrection

before he comes
back again

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 3 April 1663.

April 3, 2026April 2, 2026 by Luisa A. Igloria

I am an immigrant like you

except in all the ways my being
an immigrant are different 
from all the ways you experience 
your being an immigrant 
differently from me.

And yet we are capable 
of the same joy, the same
grieving, the same terrible
capacity to break and be
broken open, to choose rice 
over bread, both salt and sugar, 
soft instead of hard.

April 2, 2026 by Dave Bonta

Naked truths

Up by very betimes and to my office, where all the morning till towards noon, and then by coach to Westminster Hall with Sir W. Pen, and while he went up to the House I walked in the Hall with Mr. Pierce, the surgeon, that I met there, talking about my business the other day with Holmes, whom I told my mind, and did freely tell how I do depend upon my care and diligence in my employment to bear me out against the pride of Holmes or any man else in things that are honest, and much to that purpose which I know he will make good use of. But he did advise me to take as few occasions as I can of disobliging Commanders, though this is one that every body is glad to hear that he do receive a check.
By and by the House rises and I home again with Sir W. Pen, and all the way talking of the same business, to whom I did on purpose tell him my mind freely, and let him see that it must be a wiser man than Holmes (in these very words) that shall do me any hurt while I do my duty. I to remember him of Holmes’s words against Sir J. Minnes, that he was a knave, rogue, coward, and that he will kick him and pull him by the ears, which he remembered all of them and may have occasion to do it hereafter to his owne shame to suffer them to be spoke in his presence without any reply but what I did give him, which, has caused all this feud. But I am glad of it, for I would now and then take occasion to let the world know that I will not be made a novice.
Sir W. Pen took occasion to speak about my wife’s strangeness to him and his daughter, and that believing at last that it was from his taking of Sarah to be his maid, he hath now put her away, at which I am glad.
He told me, that this day the King hath sent to the House his concurrence wholly with them against the Popish priests, Jesuits, &c., which gives great content, and I am glad of it. So home, whither my father comes and dines with us, and being willing to be merry with him I made myself so as much as I could, and so to the office, where we sat all the afternoon, and at night having done all my business I went home to my wife and father, and supped, and so to bed, my father lying with me in Ashwell’s bed in the red chamber.

the honest body
is wiser than any word

which may have to be
spoken in reply

for I would now and then
speak my strangeness

wholly against the suits
which give home to the office

noon and night
having one bed

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 2 April 1663.

April 2, 2026April 2, 2026 by Luisa A. Igloria

Notes on Translation

Language isn't 
the only gate you think
leads to the garden. 

Try to enter the mind 
of the one whose work 
you're translating. 

It might be easier to bribe
the watchman, but where 
is the charm in that?

Before it existed as riddle, 
the poem beat against stones 
at the foot of the cliff.

Or it hung among particles 
caught in the lighthouse beams 
sweeping across the channel.  

The sound of air passing
through the mouth is a variant
of a form that can't be seen. 

The chest rises and falls. The water 
recedes. Sometimes you can walk so far 
without encountering a ripple.

April 1, 2026April 1, 2026 by Luisa A. Igloria

Feet

How strange they look, the toes 
like little knobs of ginger snapped

from the root, or like pulled out 
taffy, cooled mid-stretch. Heels,

meanwhile, thicken with calluses from
walking or running, standing in line. 

From wearing shoes made by those who don't 
seem to have any idea beyond the novel 

design. Surrender your feet to the woman 
at the pedicure place. She'll cluck 

as she lowers them into a water bath, then 
pat each one dry before sanding down things 

with a power tool— like furniture. Furnish, 
from the mid-15th century: to fit out, 

equip, provision (as in a castle, a ship, 
a person). Which is to say, what's used daily, 

over time needs some polish. From another angle, 
they resemble two narrow isthmuses side by side, 

anchoring the mainland of the body to wood floor, 
bathroom tile, sandy beach or garden plot. They turn 

into maps at the accupressurist's, who traces 
and kneads, leans hard into a spot, saying 

Liver, lung, right here! the little intestine, 
blocked. Suddenly the key fits into the lock.

A marvel, as if all this time, what you've 
always wanted to know was just under your heel.