Author: Luisa A. Igloria

There is a grief that grieves before it is time to grieve. 
You know it's because love precedes it. You hold the beloved's 

face in your hands and it is both a morning greeting and a prayer
you are beginning to compose. There is weak light spilling

through the blinds, after a week of damp and rain and flood.
The tree outside your window is still fully dressed in green,

though its sleeves are beginning to slowly unravel. Where
have the noisy crows of summer gone? And yet you do not

miss them, their sombre coats, their sharp punctuation
of the air. Of course there is nothing in the world in your

control. Your shadow is longest in the morning and shortest
at noon; it only seems invisible at night. You can't outrun

your shadow. Somehow you know, whatever is taken
from you can still be called to, can still answer. 

              Whatever it was I wanted then, I wanted
fast—too long, couldn't wait, too much desire
                          chalking signposts at every turn.
Those many years ago, not yet
               belonging and not yet leaving,
I touched the surfaces of things,
                           like each was a revelation.
And it was. Water in a tin drum, reflecting
               a face that floated free of rust and
verdigris. All the other little bits, leaf, twig,
                           wire, insect wings held by a buoyant
tension. I cracked an egg on the rim of a bowl
                but did not know yet how to separate
liquid from gold. Ripening fruit bruised
                           under my touch. My hands were clumsy,
my mouth full of hunger; my body, younger,
                unaware of borrowed light or danger. I took
no counsel that I didn't first pass through
                            my teeth. The moon rose, bald 
and unprophetic above the alley where 
                we lived. Does it remember me
and how badly I wished to be borne
                             into a moment no one could deny
was mine? Sometimes there is no moon
                 in the sky, except its absence. New
moon, harvest moon. Now we have news of
                             a second moon, like a quarter
traveling for a while in some loose
                  pocket. I want my ordinary days
to still feel chosen, for me to feel
                             their weight as if the gravity of my life
were tied to a force equal to or greater in magnitude.

On the sill, in the light of a harvest moon
set a glass into which you pour clear water.
Write down your wishes and slip them under
your pillow. When you wake, drink the water.

Into a glass where you've poured clear water,
take care that no anxious thoughts fall.
When you wake and drink the water, feel
it course through you like a clean new river.

Take care of the first thoughts that arrive
—unbidden, yet aware of long-hidden joy.
The clear sound of a river rippling in you,
how its surface echoes and circles

unbidden, calling to dormant feelings.
Gather too herbacious and woody scents,
forest echoes, call of circling birds.
It's been so long since you touched 

what was always soft, beneath the surface.
Write down wishes to slip into clouds.
Lay your head on the pillow, dream of water
on which the moon floats: an ocean inside you.

The ache returns with its hands in its pockets.
It sets down its suitcase and hangs its head.
I open the door and say: only for one night,
and only on the couch. There's a nor'easter;  

set down your suitcase inside the storm door.
Don't get any ideas though you've been here 
before. And don't get too comfy on the couch.
Let me have my pot of tea and my quiet.

Don't insinuate the same ideas from before.
I've been trying to reframe the language of hurt
as I inhale the warmth of orange zest and clove.
Perhaps you could fold in half and now be quiet.

In trying to reframe the language of hurt, 
I must stop myself from blaming even you.
Perhaps, folded in half and quiet, you could
lean more toward lightness and away from

those old games of blame and guilt and blame.
I opened the door but insisted: only for one night.
I want to lean more and more into lightness, though
the ache might come back with hands in its pockets.

I like that there are still delicate things
in the world: moths scattered on the storm
door, their soft brown markings like un- 
finished embroidery. One bit of string 
incense tied into a bow, exuding a warm 
green smell from a greeting card. The light 
hand of the tech who finds the vein in the hollow 
of your elbow joint, drawing out a small vial of blood 
without asking anything more of you. A cloud-
blue mug on which the potter left a dent exactly 
the size of your thumb on one side. An eyelash 
that floated onto your cheek, quiet as a virgule 
breathing between two lines of a poem.  
 

Years into the future, you'll find an almost-
country in streets and houses that have 

vanished, in rotted planks that once held up 
the pier. From a certain spot looking west, 

the sun spilled ink pots of rust and orange.
You could write, on paper, that the light

was beautiful or that after, night broke open
to swallow the ruins. You could write: here

men arrived, preaching their gospel of
advantage, throwing nets over the sides

of their boats to harvest the last of fallen
stars. Touch a finger to broken tile.

Remember an old alphabet, how it used
to live in leatherbound pages or a box 

inlaid with mother-of-pearl. City gates
were built against onrushing waters,

where once people stood exchanging
goodbyes but delaying their actual

departure. Under every archive of what
vanished lies another archive the color

of bleached coral. Ask the weaver 
birds where their home is, as they bend

sticks and straw into shapes their bodies
will fit into. Ask yourself when it is time 

to stand under a tree and shed your clothes, 
waiting to be wrapped up in its arms. 

"You won't find another country, won't find another shore....
there's no ship for you, there's no road."
                                                                                      ~ C.P. Cavafy


Like most things in life, I learned this
too the hard way. I also left— pursuing 
a myth that yielded no streets of gold, no 
green-leafed money trees, no saints 
smiling at the end of a hard shift, handing out
paychecks like halos. I too, traded one city 
for another, then another. Was called traitor, 
ungrateful for the canopy my first home 
provided, though rain coursed down the walls 
like waterfalls. Was accused of wanting more 
than someone like me should desire. And yet 
I'm always asked: when do you think you'll 
be back? I used to have nightmares 
that the roof over our heads was caving in,
or that the next wind would claw at its corners
and peel it back, revealing how we slept 
without clothes, or how we squatted 
at the table to eat. Now there's nothing
there save a mile marker, a taxi stand,
a transient house, an internet café.
The only thing left is feeling, and faded
furniture on a faded rug; portraits of
unknown presidents glimmering 
from what would have been walls. 


                                        

They aren’t bare yet—trees still hold on

to their banners of green, the heat

a palpable collar around

everything. And yet,

the counters begin

to shift—

one more orange

wing lofting south on currents

toward overwintering. One more

graphite mark moving against clear sky,

finding its place in a swelling wave as daylight fades.

"Sakit ng kalingkingan, sakit ng buong katawan."
                                                                ~ Filipino proverb

Pain flares in the smallest joint, outpost almost forgotten, 
calling up a cartography that connects the folds of the little 

finger to weather in the knee. The ankle smells smoke— 
a fire burning in the hinterlands of the brain. Throw cold 

water on it, but night after night, the burning starts again. 
Press on the valley between thumb and index finger. A covey 

of birds thrashes about in your lungs. A figure in a golden hat 
leads a flock of tiny animals across the hinge of the collarbone. 

It taps its staff in the air, embroidering a path to safety. Oh terrible 
atlas, we have no idea what waves slosh up against countries of organs 

bordered by currents of blood. Some are so close, we could open a window 
and see what was served for dinner on the other side. But what armies 

prepare to catapult onslaughts against each other?  A spider 
ladders down the spine, its ball of grief a pellet rolled up in silk.

~ after Bhanu Kapil

Who are you and who paid the hundred
dollar airport fee you didn't expect?

What do you remember about the day
you walked through the door, and if it 
smelled like rain or diesel exhaust?

How will you begin
to piece together a plan for the next
fifteen or fifty years of your life?

Describe the difference between
the face that looked out of the mirror
from autumn last year, and tonight
as the moon drops half  a coin in the sky.

Tell me what you know about hinges.

Where will we go when islands
become dust particles floating 
with no need for ships?

Who was responsible for the suffering
of children before the sound of cities
falling descended into silence?

What is the width of your ribcage?

How would you live, if you were 
allowed to be unlimited?

What are the consequences of pressing
your mouth into the shape of a dirge?

How have you prepared for the death
of your oldest and most exhausted self?

What would you whistle, if you could?