April 7, 2020April 7, 2020 by Luisa A. Igloria

On the Orbit of Socially Distanced Bodies

"In retrograde motion, each planet seems to slow 
down at times, then move in reverse, or retrograde, before 
resuming its course." - Encyclopedia Brittanica


In grocery stores, now there are stick-on
decals on the floor that show customers 

where they must stand in relation to 
others. Walking in the neighborhood,

we try to skirt around other people 
taking advantage of the spring 

sunlight, the sight of trees recovering 
leaves and buds, the river no longer 

wearing drab winter threads. In Ptolemy's
model, where the earth stands still at

the center of the universe, all heavenly 
bodies should trace a perfect circle around 

the earth. But they also wobble, slowing down 
as they move farther away and speeding up 

as they come closer again. Secluded now 
for weeks in our homes, not going to work or 

school or church, not eating out or seeing any-
one except whoever is sheltering in place with us,

it's as if we share that same eccentricity of
movement: and our bodies quicken at the sight

of other bodies just out walking, trying but 
not always able to keep to their own path.

Luisa A. Igloria

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.