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.
Poet Luisa A. Igloria (Poetry Foundation web page, author webpage ) is Co-Winner of the 2019 Crab Orchard Open Competition in Poetry for her manuscript Maps for Migrants and Ghosts, forthcoming from Southern Illinois University Press in fall 2020. She is the winner of the 2015 Resurgence Prize (UK), the world’s first major award for ecopoetry, selected by former UK poet laureate Sir Andrew Motion, Alice Oswald, and Jo Shapcott. She is the author of What is Left of Wings, I Ask (2018 Center for the Book Arts Letterpress Chapbook Prize, selected by former US Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey); Bright as Mirrors Left in the Grass (Kudzu House Press eChapbook selection for Spring 2015), Ode to the Heart Smaller than a Pencil Eraser (Utah State University Press, 2014 May Swenson Prize), Night Willow (Phoenicia Publishing, 2014), The Saints of Streets (University of Santo Tomas Publishing House, 2013), Juan Luna’s Revolver (2009 Ernest Sandeen Prize, University of Notre Dame Press), and nine other books. She is a member of the core faculty of the MFA Creative Writing Program at Old Dominion University which she directed from 2009-2015. In 2018, she was the inaugural Glasgow Distinguished Writer in Residence at Washington and Lee University. When she isn’t writing, reading, or teaching, she cooks with her family, knits, hand-binds books, and listens to tango music.