Author: Luisa A. Igloria

How light
the leaden shoe

which clad
the eager foot—

How loud
the humming

of the seed within
the bursting pod—

How rich
the chalky sums

written on
the slate—

As if it were
your one and only

heart, take and fill
the emptiest cup—

 

In response to Via Negativa: Smitten.

Do you never want to sleep again
on the ground floor because once
a flood rose in the night to pull
whole towns into the sea?

Do you think every time you wince
in that hollow beneath your ribs,
it means you have forgotten how joy
can fill the belly as well as pain?

Do you think only a cascade of hot
tears can melt the hard little chips
that lodge in the unsuspecting
corners of the day?

Do you think, because you sliced one
of two glowing persimmons open only to find
it puckered your tongue, that the other
won’t continue to quietly ripen?

 

In response to Via Negativa: Believer.

What am I hiding in my left
palm? in my right? If you guessed
a freckled blue stone, you are only
partly right and you will need
to pry the artifact from its
reluctant container. A needle
rests half in, half out of the linen
stretched across an embroidery hoop.
See how neatly you can form
the letters of your name
because a circle has been drawn
so tightly around as a frame.

 

In response to Via Negativa: Among royals.

Lighten the craft, downsize,
divest— ruthlessly take out all
there is from brimming closets

and dump them on the floor
or on the bed. Empty each drawer
in every kitchen cabinet; unearth

from storage old newspaper
clippings, coats, banker’s boxes
of letters from lovers old

or dead: hold them one
by one, one last time
to check if they inspire

a thrill akin to joy.
If not, bid them the long-
overdue, the firm farewell.

 

In response to Via Negativa: Believer.

“alone you’ve finished
what no one began…” ~ Alejandra Pizarnik

Because the lost spoon never finished
its epic banquet, I delay coming
to the novel’s end.

For anything is still possible:
the hidden narrative of the universe’s origins
is tucked into a space on a double-toothed

nit comb. The seed that cracked
both earth and heaven as it grew
is churning in the white belly

of the cow. And everything is change:
the flame quiets to a broody ember,
the ember powders into ash.

Just because I close my eyes
does not mean I have forgotten
the bread I left to rise.

 

In response to Via Negativa: A Glimpse from the Gutter (Alejandra Pizarnik).

How beautiful
the dark silhouettes
against the early blue,

when the thing
has not yet come
back into itself

and any sense
of choice might still
go either way—

The ice
darkest on the bridge
and they say, most

treacherous—
but for the way every edge
blurs in the melting—

 

In response to Via Negativa: Bit parts.

Here I am trying to remember the name
of a song my mother was learning to sing
—in the evenings she’d ask me to play
accompaniment on the piano: a kundiman,
kung hindi man, if only, if not, if never,
song of always unrequited love, this one
about a lover on his deathbed, pining
only for one last sight of the beloved.
Does it end well? Lyrically, none of them do.
Musically, the voice is a triumph as it scales
the walls of growing sorrow. She will not look.
She will give her heart to another. She will not
be made to love under duress. The moon will float
above it all, its face streaked ash and silver.

 

In response to Via Negativa: Moss gatherer.

Aquinas suggests five remedies for when the fizz
bottoms out of the champagne, for when the balloon tied to the body
can’t even lever a dust mote to save the day— Not: Wallow in ballads from the jukebox,
dance with one arm wrapped around your neck, the other your shoulder. Not: swallow
every cachou that smells faintly of burnt almonds. He is firm and eschews improv:
first, he says, grant yourself something you like— And yes, I like the idea of a bateau
going by the name “Pleasure,” bobbing on the surface of the oily water, ready to punt
headfirst toward somewhere other than here. Second, assuage your sorrows
in the form of weeping. Have a good cry, find some little refreshment in catharsis, for
just as laughter does not take away from joy, tears do not damage sorrow. In a souq,
keepsakes are sold: tear catchers of glass tipped with bronze or silver, spindles to keep
lacrimae harvested from each eye. I’ll bring back just one each for you, my daughters— no
more than that. Something to show by way of novelty to your friends, yes? & your gremlin?
Next, contemplate the truth of your sadness: its peculiar song inducing ear worm,
or when it coincides with cravings for chocolate and chips, according to your journal.
Patchouli’s next; or a peppermint scrub, followed by naps on the couch or hammock.
Quell sadness by bathing and sleeping, is his final note. That’s right, no J(k).
Reviewed, remixed, his remedies read a bit like New Age— not medieval— wisdom. I
sag sometimes beneath the peculiar sorrow of being the one my children turn to when each
tangos with her own demons. Then I get FaceTime and phone calls frantic with sobbing,
urgent pleas for help. Thomas, what else can you tell me of sorrow branching from sorrow? Of
visceral pains that tear me up, head-heart-psyche, because of my mother-nature?
When finally I fall into sleep (after a hot bath, as prescribed),
xylems pull from the roots of old fears and swell with pressure. Pane, panic—
yeasts from similar spores? Oh to starve forever what feeds on the bread of misgiving. Rhumb
zeroing in on the mother of cures for malaise: just not enough to numb, and not yet nirvana.

 

In response to St. Thomas Aquinas.

What kind of cloud is that? our traveling
companion asked, peering at the bobbled

masses suspended like teats on the underside
of a thunderstorm, like follicles of cream—

And if snow or rain fell now,
tilting back our heads

would we most clearly resemble
our ongoing hunger, would we open

and open as in that first instinctive
prising-then-latching, that gasping

for breath between the beginning
and the rest of the curving track—

 

In response to Via Negativa: Impediment.

They called your name once, twice,
thrice to keep the cord
from snapping

To call the frightened bird
of your spirit back
to its bamboo cage

I found the cloth on which those
mystical letters had been embroidered—
I know now why I may not say them

 

In response to Via Negativa: Self-conscious.