The past is a dream wracked by fevers
and unknown blistering pains, a second
name you are given to confuse the gods
so generous with gifts of sickness
and delirium. Camphor oil and vapors
in the green room, steam from a kettle.
House lizards free-fall from the ceiling
to kiss the floor. Secrets wrap around
your forearm like bangles, thin and
swappable. Who gave you that ring,
that missal, that musical chain?
Am I yours, am I yours, am I truly
yours? You went from one to the other
around the circle of kin. They were
too busy braiding each other's hair
or picking seeds out of their teeth.
They rolled and stacked tiles of ivory
on tables, sweeping and gathering.
Poet Luisa A. Igloria (Poetry Foundation web page, author webpage ) 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.