Author: Luisa A. Igloria

Before the finish, the priming
            of surfaces. The lag in time 
       aimed at maximum dryness for effective
bonding. And yet everything is pocked with  
            flaws from the beginning, rich with 
       the pigments of unevenness. Humidity 
in the air, the sill stippled with pinprick 
            drops. We desire smooth sheets, 
       a glass of cool liquid. The window 
cracked open to a breeze. However, whatever,
            here, now— despite what we know
       of water or fire, rusted bridges,
every event of astounding collapse. 

In the puddled center of me, there is 
    a sense that sometimes flickers— when 
it's bright I'm convinced it must be 
    my eternal self, or something 
like its thumbnail. Other times 
    when I try to remember what 
it was that was trying to make itself 
    known, I say Who am I kidding? or 
O you old still unformed cell of my being. 
    Mornings, I get its recent telegrams; or 
its tight-muscled ambassadors ambush me. 
    When I flex, I press on the gas 
and pretend I'm arrowing down 49th street, 
    straight down to the beach. I want 
to roust, even just a little, the night 
    herons who are always leaving so much 
sticky goop on the roofs of cars.

Curfew, from Old French cuevrefeu, 
"cover fire;" Old French covrir,
"to cover, protect, conceal" 
                      ~ Etymonline



Not bells but sirens signal the time 
for extinguishing fires, sweeping 

ashes over any remaining smolder. 
Which is to say, we save the rest 

of our questions about whose and how many 
new deaths for a less crepuscular hour. 

But now we will feed each other. We open 
envelopes of winged bean and rinse them; 

wash the poison out of rice grains, boil 
tubers rescued from their own kinds of 

detention in the soil. Where we reconvene, 
we tell each other we are not alone. 

Continents of dust drift above cities 
in the southwest. Yesterday, discordant 

march of soldiers and creaking tanks. And yet, 
the sky's constantly unfolding horoscope.  

Light cupped
in a lantern queries
the depths— Even when I
don't move from this spot,
I will hear the smallest spoons
crack the backs of waves. 
 
*

Fortune favors the (brave,
good, bold)— each station  
sways, suspended in a ferris 
wheel. The view from below,  
as above. Sky larger than you;
a couch frayed from overuse.

*

Drape a sheet across 
two clotheslines to make 
a tent. The quality of
the photograph gives a clue
about its date. But doesn't it
grow more beautiful as it fades? 

A niece she hasn't heard from in years 
sends an email, asking if she knows where 
her grandmother is buried. It's a curious 
question. Once, long ago, she knew with more 
certainty where to turn after entering the main 
cemetery gates— to the right, within sight 
of but not passing the mausoleum built by 
the wealthiest Chinese merchant in town 
for their matriarch. Then the footpath, 
leading to plots lower down the hill. But
that's the farthest her memory can take her 
now, removed from the physicality of place—
wet moss and mud underfoot, pines standing 
without comment on the periphery. These days, 
people prefer to bring the ashes of their 
dead to columbaria. No map— only some 
kind of index, alphabetical listing; rows 
of identical, numbered boxes.  

I spear 
         a melon ball with a blue 
toothpick        When I lay it down 
on a napkin, it leaves 
                        a mark
like a watercolor cloud 
What this means 
                is the shapes 
of any number of things  
are hidden
           inside each other 
They leach out 
at every opportunity
                       Who
wouldn't want to become
something other than
                     their
merely recognizable selves  

At the imaging center, her husband checks in
along with other patients there for MRI or 
tomography scans. After they get tracer  
dye injected in their veins, they'll lie 

on a table fed into a gantry as x-rays rotate 
around their bodies, producing cross-sectioned 
image slices— organs, bones, muscles, blood 
vessels— that can be layered to help 

doctors with diagnoses or treatment. 
She's in the waiting room, where the large TV 
monitor is always tuned to a channel where two men 
go into falling-down houses. They rip apart rotting 

floorboards and waterstained walls like they 
were made of wet cardboard, toss out old bathroom 
fixtures and hardware. They stop frequently to banter, 
as the closed captions show. Later, a female realtor 

will check on their progress; her clients are so 
excited for open house. "Before" and "After" time 
lapse pictures flash on the screen. When her husband 
comes out of his procedure, the show is ready for

the big reveal. It looks as though complete renovation 
took only a week— A family oohs and aahs over a marble-
veneered kitchen island; bold paint colors, massive 
flower vases elevating furniture on a budget. 

Procyon lotor


The guys from Acme examine 
the holes some animal harrowed 
in the ground and say, No, not vole
or mole but raccoon— recorded 

on John Smith's list of Powhatan words 
as aroughcun, meaning the one who rubs 
or scratches with its hands. Or variously,
like a rat or a dog that washes its hands.

And so the eponym, after the brightest star
in Canis Minor. A mask, a troop, a gaze of them
seem to have found our backyard hospitable to
their nocturnal rooting and excretion. Perhaps 

they find the fig tree tempting, even if 
the fruit is still mostly green. The animal 
control guys set a trap by the fence, laying out 
a short trail of marshmallows. They'll come out 

every day over the next two weeks to check and
replace traps as needed. Of course it is the lure, 
the old ferment of sugar. We wonder when we'll hear,
in the dark, the clang that precedes the moaning.  

It is their nature to stay
hidden for as long as they can.

It is the one burning gaze 
out of a face, in a row of girls

dressed as men to partner another
row of girls dressed as themselves—

my mother's among them, the image 
of pulchritude in a flounced skirt

and beaded top. I've seen this 
picture only once or twice. But I 

know very little about the one with 
the burning gaze—only that she rode

a bus from the town they were from 
in the north, almost every week, 

even after my mother had married. 
After she was married, I don't think

my father knew all her secrets either.
Both my parents died later in life

of natural causes—lingering illness 
combined with age. I tried searching 

online for records of that other death, 
in our home, one night in '64 or '65; 

there are none. But medical information 
confirms that mixing a rodenticide 

with coffee will not neutralize 
the poison. It will still be toxic.
 

My vascular network 
would circle the earth's 
     midline at least four times— 
sprawling ravelry of red, marking 
highways that explorers in the past 
     had to decipher by rumor and star-
chart. Their destination: islands
warmed with clouds of clove and 
     anise, forests where vines 
of pink and green peppercorn 
still hold their secrets close 
     in each cluster. Long 
     centuries after, have I been 
found, or have the many traces
of my going made new maps
     for all my future sojourning?