Author: Luisa A. Igloria

(a cento)

3

closer than secret
the peonies rise up from the soil just to see
        the roots naked, render
What I learned by height—

that's the story

How could I say no to you

at one time we couldn't see
where the water was born

          Yes, of
course I'm afraid of death, but no less so
       my
own life.

But the dream repeats itself. Every dusk,
the longing.



Line sources:
Yalie Saweda Kamara, Sally Wen MAo, Airea
D. Matthews, Kaveh Akbar, Brandy Nalani
mcDougall, Tarfia Faizullah, Vievee Francis

(a cento)


2

                I only
borrowed this dust

pleasure
like a little animal

Scraps of lists, a paper flower

I've got questions of my own but
let's give a little

between here and gone,
a distance of hard words

you cannot dream with your mouth

Did we falter when love took us
the way that soap loves an airborne virus

we are closer
than secret


Line sources:
Stanley Kunitz, Fiona Templeton,
Elisa Gabbert, Adrienne Rich, 
Douglas Kearney, Keith S. Wilson,
Sappho, francine j. harris, Yalie
Saweda Kamara

(a cento)


1

the day could do without
me.

as though time in the heart never started
I dipped my feet into its emptiness
but upon which I lay my skull at night

A hawk flies over summer's body

Dough rising somewhere

The earth saying language and vision
are nothing

                              I
refuse, I refuse.

I worry about lost time
                           I only
borrowed this dust.

*


Line Sources:
Taylor Byas, Bejan Matur, Yaxkin Melchy Ramos,
Cate Marvin, Yiannis Isidorou, Ari Banias,
Sandra Lim, Andrea Cohen, Christian
Gullette, Stanley Kunitz

Four trucks parked on either side of a narrow street.
Electrical repair, plumbing, appliance delivery.

It's trash pickup day, and the city RCV can't seem
to navigate its usual route. It backs up and out
the other end.

Meanwhile, despite little rain, on 49th and several 
intersections, signs of coastal flood warning. 

Morning like a damp washcloth on your temples.

Mist in the air, all day the intermittent 
drizzle. 

Someone sights a line of pelicans 
flying alongside the wind. 

Look up, look up, how their wings
litter the sky.

(a cento)


     The heart is not where
the heart should be

I read a book about microbes and fungi, how these critters
find a way into us, never leave 

What else to know
of loss but how
a man's breast might cool
beneath your fingers

I created more loss where I meant to make less

Here, my one raucous prayer
coaxed from this poor drum,

my double heart

More than enough
is what I keep
getting

We are kin of the same ilk

here you are, a resurrection





Line sources:
Rigoberto Gonzalez; Martha Silano; Paisley Rekdal; 
Dan Beachy-Quick; Patrick Rosal; Lia Purpura; Linda
Hogan; Eleni Sikelianos and Courtney Stephens

If there's something you don't want to do, you find
a way to avoid it. My father, for instance bit the ear

of the man charged with taking him to school. Granted
he was only a boy; and it's mostly cartilage in the ear.

I envy his gumption, even that bit of originality— not
thumb or hand or arm but a leap up, closing in on the ear.

I imagine he ran away through the fields, laughing while
their househelp bellowed on the path, clutching his ear.

When they caught up with him, did he get an earful? 
Did someone drag him home, or to school, by the ear?

What I don't hear from the story he told, I fill in.
Then it's passed around, a little legend learned by ear.

Note that I don't say lie— think of the fleshy outer cup
and how it folds sound. Like jazz, I play ouido, or by ear.

In Manila, the poor are rattling 
mansion gates and pelting glass 
windows with balls of mud. 

When floodwaters rise, they rise
with the force of imperfect contracts—
Would you build a dike lined with straw

and filched copper wires? Would you 
build an empire with melted chains from 
designer bags? Another hurricane is brewing 

off the coast. Streets turn into canals 
and their currents stir salt into bile, 
bile into spite into storms of hatred.

It is a marvel, how others can look 
upon the world as if without fear.

Tomorrow is a horse waiting at the gate.
Mounted easy, sure of where to go.

Locks spring open: one 
burnished one after another.

If I were the rider, would I
let the horse have its head?

Doubt begins small—sight of a gold
shell left on the side of the tree.

Where does the spirit go after
the body wriggles free of its case?

Between pleasure and trepidation, 
        the tongue's anticipation of sweet-

mess versus the sudden burst of bile. Between
        fight and flight, the crackle of

neurons firing in the brain. But everything else
        in the in-between cannot be only flyover

country. Sometimes you are oblivious even to 
        yourself, until a shadow falls between

you and the light, until unexpected danger
        presses its thin blade against your throat

and whispers Give me everything you've got. 
        People draw their curtains close. Street

lamps flicker. What will you pull out for a weapon
        that was waiting for just this moment?

How will I know when it's time? 
You'll know, say all my friends 

who have retired. Retire, as in 
to pull away; withdraw, retreat—

like armies backing down from 
the assault. Or to move into 

seclusion, leave the noise
of the gathered throng and 

climb into your bed's cool 
sheets instead. When no one 

else can wear your number 
because you're unsurpassed: 

like Michael Jordan's #23 
jersey, and Kareem Abdul-

Jabbar's #33. But if re- means
anew, once more, doesn't retire 

also mean to tire again? The pet
you have to take outside never

seems to tire of pulling at
the leash, or bounding back—  

here he comes again, meaning
throw the ball so I can fetch.