upsweep, down-
sweep of pinoy appraisal---
in elevator, hotel or hospital
lobby, there's a kind of gaze
that wants to take stock of
what's left of the islands
in me, or more accurately,
how well I've transcended
those origins---
if i'm sleek and taste-
ful, exude the air of
a sophisticated traveler
who still goes to sunday
mass and makes mano
clicks open her designer
purse for cash to put
in the collection basket
if I keep a spotless house
with a tapestry of the last
supper above the fireplace
if my daughters have had
their debut with cotillon
or weddings with at least
seven sets of godparents
i confess i don't go
to those galas and black-
tie affairs where they still
do line dancing
in my office building
there's a manong who drives
into the side entryway
after 5 to pick up the trash
and change the plastic linings
and in the parking garage
there's a manang who drives
a little golf cart, checking
on whether cars
have the proper decals
at the airport they make
my coffee and give me change
they bring the elderly
passengers their wheelchairs
at a conference in portland
last month, my poet friend
texted to say there was
a manong serving home-
cooked dishes from a food truck
on the corner of harvey milk & 3rd
he said he was homesick he
gave him extra rice extra
ulam with sabaw
Poet Luisa A. Igloria (Poetry Foundation web page, author webpage ) was recently appointed Poet Laureate of the Commonwealth of Virginia (2020-2022). She is Co-Winner of the 2019 Crab Orchard Open Competition in Poetry for Maps for Migrants and Ghosts (Southern Illinois University Press, September 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; she also teaches classes at The Muse Writers’ Center in Norfolk. 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.