Author: Luisa A. Igloria

"When you believe in things you don't understand
Then you suffer..."
                    ~ Stevie Wonder



We were studying one weekend at home
for a test on the national hero, Rizal— 
he who had learned fencing, over a dozen 
languages, enough medicine to perform 
cataract surgery on his own mother, and
written two novels to inflame a people's 
revolution that toppled the Spanish colonial 
regime. On the eve of his execution in 1896, 
he wrote a long poem which his sisters smuggled 
out of his cell in a cocinilla: fourteen stanzas, 
each with five lines. He called it his last 
farewell— Mi último adiós. We had to memorize 
at least half of it. It was so hot, and we 
were tired of memorizing, so we thought 
of going to the corner store to buy more 
snacks. With a dramatic flourish, I called out, "Mi
último adiós!"— which made my mother and aunt, 
making dinner in the kitchen, drop whatever they 
were holding and shriek— Take that back, 
take it back, don't you ever say that again!

The purple one is blackcurrant; next to it,
pear amandine, passionfruit, chocolate. The trio 
at the corner table under the slowly revolving fan 
are recalling the last time they were actually in 
Paris, before all this political nonsense, 
at a sidewalk cafe—and not at this French bakery 
in the south on a day when temperatures are climbing 
past a hundred degrees. The Sysco food delivery trucks
rumble past; the DoorDash guy comes out of Chipotle 
next door then speeds off in his car. The woman 
tears delicately at her authentic all-butter 
croissant (if the ends are curved inward so it looks 
like a crescent, that isn't the real thing; it may 
have margarine). The man next to her swipes his paper 
napkin across his lips after biting into his cold 
baguette sandwich. The younger woman with them 
points at the suncatcher in the window, twirling on 
a chain festooned with teacup and Eiffel Tower charms.  

At follow-up the day after surgery, there are at least 
      two new faces in the clinic— one of them takes your
pulse, fishing an old-fashioned watch out of her pocket
      instead of using a phone timer, like the others do.
Given that you've had nothing to eat or drink since the day
      before, perhaps it shouldn't have been surprising 
that before the lab technician can get her vials ready,
      you blanch pale and clammy. The other new nurse— tall 
and young, with high cheekbones— runs to the break room 
      to rummage through their lunches, returning with 
a bottle of apple juice. It's almost miraculous, how simple 
      sugars quickly bring you back from the verge of losing
consciousness— here in this examination room with no
      windows and not even a fainting couch in sight. 

The captured animal is young
       and so must be released 
again in the wild. In other contexts,
       the young are captured where
they lie in sleep. Is it still wild 
       if you can see and smell 
the human machinations behind 
       occurrence? That wild descends 
in the form of a rain of fire. Before 
       it explodes, does it resemble 
the parabola of a flower? Then  
       the earth pulls it closer, faster. 

That we want to document 
our daily minutiae and keep the torn 
halves of tickets to remind us we do 
more than just stand in place. 
That we keep a fourth of anything
in the freezer while quickly 
enjoying the rest. That a tattered 
leaf and a finger of mold on tile 
is a sign of an active underground. 
That the skies can still look 
startled rather than just one 
uniform shade of blue.

"...in war all
wonder is dead"
          ~ Dave Bonta


In the kitchen of the Polish 
        art history professor, the freezer 
is stocked with bottles of vodka.
        Tables overflow with bread and curry;
in the next room, guests are chatting 
        with a visiting scholar about the rise 
and fall of republics. It's spring,
        the air mild with the scent of lilacs
and pink magnolia. I can't remember  
        how I wind up mentioning to the scholar
that General "Ray-Ban" Douglas MacArthur, 
        whose remains lie next to those of his second
wife under the marble floor of the MacArthur 
        Museum downtown, took a sixteen-year old
Filipina starlet as his mistress when he was 
        fifty. But I remember a Filipino historian
who gave a lecture, once, on the importance 
        of paying attention to "useless information"
such as this— without which, data would only 
        be data and give no clue as to the actual 
ramifications of conflict or conquest.
        On the eve of the Battle of Manila Bay, 
what rumors did merchants, fisherfolk, and 
        water carriers hear? On the first of May, 
1898, Commodore George Dewey said "You   
        may fire when ready, Gridley." The next day, 
the entire Spanish fleet was sunk and 
        the Philippines ceded to the United 
States. There is always a price for any exchange. 
        We, or those like us, are simply collateral 
in wars over which we have never had any say. 

What's the worst thing 
that could happen? is a question
you're told you should think about
when on the brink of anxiety. Loaded 
question, that. You might say a truck 
throttling down the road could ram 
through the front porch and screech 
to a stop in the living room. You might 
forget to turn off the burner or the water 
and come home to cinders or a flood. 
A proliferation of irregular blooms
might come to light, encircled by contrast 
dye. The worst thing that could happen, 
therefore, is that we die. But is anyone 
you know— or are you— dead right now? 
No? Then perhaps you can go out in the night 
and observe what goes on and off, not caring 
how many times. Frog calls. Fireflies.  

“Yea, and if some god shall wreck me in
the wine-dark sea, even so I will endure..."
                     ~ Homer, The Odyssey


The tossup is always and again 
between fate and free will; absence 
of choice, versus a universe of unlimited 
options. Remember how the cafeteria used 
to advertise "Choice of Ice Cold Milk?"  
But in the hit movie about multiverses,
the central question that the main
character asks is What if. What if 
she had obeyed her father and married 
someone else— would she wind up facing
an impending divorce and bankruptcy? 
Would her daughter not be stricken 
with angst and dysphoria, wear normal
clothes, speak sweetly without yelling?
Sometimes the only possible answer 
seems to be Yes. But mostly, this is
the life you've come to know: trash 
pickup every Thursday, recycling 
every  two weeks. Doctor visits, 
bloodwork, the uncertainty of 
results, the fear of what comes next. 
Pizza or Chinese takeout Fridays.  
Fortune cookies for dessert. 

Crows in the gardenia bush.
Driveways exiting onto asphalt.
One dark speck: a fishing boat; 
early morning, the sea 
clear as glass.

Glove or no glove, it fits
roundly, beautifully pink
and unscratched in my hand. 
I bought it at Logan Airport 
years ago, returning from a trip 
during which I read some poems 
in a couple of college writing 
classrooms. But not once has anyone 
ever thrown it across a yard or grassy 
field flecked with dandelions in early
summer, toward an eager child  
ready with a mitt still a little too large 
for her hand. Not once has it splintered 
an upstairs window to a chorus of shouts.
Perhaps it simply went the way most things 
meant to serve as reminder or memento 
go— on a shelf, then in a box with the stuffed 
bunny and baby shoes; then shuffled from  
move to move until it resurfaces. So I admire 
the sixty-five year old woman, a competitive 
slalom skateboarder whose well-used skateboard 
and team bag are displayed in a Skate Museum. 
When she screams as she loops through giant 
slalom courses, it's because she's scared
and happy at the same time. When I hear 
a loud bang from somewhere down the road, 
I guess it could be either gunshots, 
or a car backfiring.