Author: Luisa A. Igloria

In Artemisia's painting, completed 
          in 1612 when she was only 20, 
Judith beheads the invader-general, 
          assisted by her maid. Sometimes 
I forget that the artist is not the woman
          she portrays in this scene, face
resolute above the blade that's already severed
          the arteries in his neck. Raped at 17, 
she wouldn't recant her accusations at the trial
          of her rapist, though they tortured her 
with thumbscrews. From whichever angle, the subject
          is who gets to tell the truth, or who 
would be believed. The artist has given it to us—
          her truth. It stains everything in 
proximity: the tufted sheets, the hands that took
          on this work; blood-spatter on her breast.  

"...for him it was not an important failure"
               "Musée des Beaux Arts," W.H. Auden 


They may have never been wrong 
about the indifference of people 
and animals, the banality 
of evil and suffering— but what 
if at all did they know about 
its opposite, joy; of how
it must have felt to leave 
the labyrinth, spread your wings 
and glide through a sky honeyed 
with sunlight? Easy enough to mark 
this only as the site of disaster: 
aircraft falling out of the sky, bodies
tumbling into the river spangled 
with ice. Easy enough to say
nothing to see here now, move  
along— except the water glitters
with the shapes of the newly dead,
and nothing can sail calmly on.     
   
 
*Sea of Icarus
 

All day, her memories rake hard 
ground in search of lost gems, 

in search of veins that might 
lead to a heart of ore. Or 

they cluster like raucous birds 
in the morning and sing off-key, 

like children learning a melody 
by rote. She opens the shoe closet,

hunting for a pair to cover her feet
against the cut of stones. There's no map

to tell her how far she should go, how 
deep to dig. How far under layers of rock

and shale does the water table dwell?
Beneath is the aquifer, groundwater.

 
You know you're only mortal and not a god

           but that doesn't mean you know nothing 

about how language is right now being used 

           to camouflage ignorance as virtue, villainy

as self-control, avarice as acumen. Whole 

           planes collide mid-air or roll over in flames 

on the tarmac. Lawyers stutter I don't know 

           rather than tell the truth. Sure they know. 

Of course we know things. And we know it takes 

           balls to admit the truth of what you said

you didn't see coming, until the shadow of 

           a beach umbrella transforms lickety split,

darkly flaring over your head. Drop your chili

           lime margarita and sunblock— it's cobra hoods 

all the way down. (That's actually the name 

           of a line of garments designed for tactical 

concealment, though I meant the actual viper 

           drawing its head back before the strike.) 

In old tales, not all serpents are sinister. 

           Think of doctor-healer Aesculepius and his 

snake-encircled caduceus: Zeus killed him 

           with thunderbolts, afraid of how his science

brought humans back from the brink of death. 

           If you don't want to be a myth, be a mystery 

—but the kind that doesn't stifle the wonder 

           out of stars and stones and fir-clad 

forests. Don't be a thug or a bully or a dick. 

You know those emails 
that begin with Hey— 
Hey what did I miss
when I wasn't in class 
      the other day?

I learned hey (or hei, 
or hai) in the middle ages was 
a shout of encouragement
to hunting
      dogs.

That made me wonder: 
was I ever sharp as
a hunting dog, 
back in my 
      own heyday?

When people say
heydey they usually mean
back in the time you were
in the state of 
     greatest vigor 

or when you were younger
and at your freshest,
smartest, most 
scintillating best.
     As if youth—

that knockout, 
six-pack, smasher—  
were all you needed
to walk into a room
     and claim it.

I didn't even think I had
a brain back then. But hey, 
I've earned some mileage, 
and love that now I can say  
    yeah, I know some shit. 

"There comes a time when silence is betrayal." 
                       - Martin Luther King, Jr.


Not to belittle your pain, my pain,
but none of this is even original 
anymore: the world (suddenly, again) 
a window-box sprouting every 
variety of that noxious flower  

called despot. Astounding how so many 
come from humble beginnings (clerk, 
schoolteacher, cobbler, cook), then 
turn. What was it: abuse in childhood,
beatings from alcoholic fathers, 

abandonment by their mothers? They wore 
a sense of wounded humanity as if it were  
a scar inflicted on no one else but them, ever. 
After seizing power, some became so paranoid 
they hired lookalikes, or had body doubles 

surgically altered. Not a morsel passed 
their lips until food tasters swallowed first, 
without falling down dead. As history does, it runs 
its course, including punishing years of massacre, 
purge, brutal torture. When history catches up 

to them, it's astounding, too, how terrible 
yet ordinary they look in those final closeups. 
Rotting teeth, ashen thumbprint of hair above 
the lips, bloodshot eyes; their bodies hung 
upside down, or pressed into a wall by bullets.     

In front of the parking garage, a total stranger 
accosts me with this question: Would you be interested 

in coming to my church? Wow. So, is there a better 
way to answer besides No thank you? Today, I belong 

to the church of throat lozenges and ginger tea 
and not turning on the news after dinner. Last 

weekend we went to the church where a pianist 
played two concerts and gave three miraculous 

encores as people leaped to their feet and gave 
ovation after ovation. On the wall next to my 

faithful rice cooker and altar of unwashed plates,
the setting sun has thrown coins of light through 

the blinds. I can retreat to my church of changing joys
and sorrows, where some nights my daughter volunteers

to cook dinner. My husband kneels to empty the water
drawer under the laundry machine. The sound of clothes 

spinning is backdrop to our conversations. When the door 
opens we catch the warm whiff of garments freshly cleaned.   

Isn't it funny what I've reminded 
others of, just by being me? There was 

the one who got all excited, hearing 
a Filipina news reporter cover a story 

on NPR— he said I nearly ran my car 
off the road, she sounded just like you! 

And then there was a professor in graduate 
school who said my poems reminded him 

of Sylvia Plath, though of course I hadn't 
put my head in the oven. It might seem 

hard to get over such underestimation. 
But with a little time, you'll learn 

to see the smolder beneath the simmer, 
before plumes of smoke shoot into the sky. 

From oval-shaped beans, Arabica has 
a sweeter, fruitier taste. Rounder, Robusta 

has that brassier edge, because of its higher 
caffeine content. Besides mouthfeel and smell, 

how does one navigate these flavor profiles?
Chocolate, jasmine, citrus, smoke; roasted barley,

cinnamon, clove, wet soil. Body is the weight or 
density of the coffee on your tongue; acidity, what 

bursts as a brighter note after you swallow. There are 
those who won't take coffee any other way but black. 

No sugar or honey, no cream, no crown of froth— 
as if to do otherwise might mean a disposition 

toward weakness, robust meaning having great 
strength. Upright, vigorous like robur (an English oak), 

as if what's sweet didn't also live in fields of hardy
cane, making generous sugar without the bees.       

Thorns dipped in ink from soot and 
ashes, ancient rituals for drawing

on the body. Once, only the brave 
were marked with sequences of rills 

and rivers, bands crossing their wrists 
and lower arms. Breastplates mimic 

the scales of centipedes or lizards—
All we want is to be aligned with

light and its protective webs, before
we return to the earth that moulded us.