Author: Luisa A. Igloria

Heartache. I watch the robot vacuum 
go over the room. Sweep and mop, sweep
and mop. Bump into corners then back
away. I understand the assignment 
and I understand the constraints.
My attention is likewise faithful.
Is always correcting until a semblance
of purpose and direction is regained.
What intelligence decides what's ample
and what's not enough? The heart  
wobbles on the edge of every absence,
trips on every untethered clod. How
do we become so used to the ways
our bodies occupy space? Even in it,
I long for it. A faint chime sounds 
to signal the end of a sequence. 

He has always been a timid
man, but the type that never
wants to show it. He's afraid
of fireworks yet takes the fire-
cracker he's offered on New 
Year's eve, holds a lighter
to the wick and tosses it as far
as he can into the yard. Having
done so, he retreats into the house
to down a glass of 7Up. All around
is a chaos of pops and explosions. 
Judas belts and Catherine-wheels.
Someone firing blanks (we hope)
into the air. He has never held
nor owned a gun. Barely out of
his teens, during the war an enemy
soldier plucks the nail out of his
little finger. He never likes 
to recount the white-hot pain,
the doubling over. As an older
adult, he goes to a barbershop
where they also trim clients'
nails. Straight across; just
a hint of clear polish.

Yes, I am heir, the only
      heir of my parents, both 
deceased. I may not have 
      copies of their marriage 
or death certificates but 
      look, there are their names, 
plain as anything, on my birth 
      record. Original paper. Thin
as onion skin. Perforated 
      in a few places by the bang
of typewriter keys. A clerk in some
      nondescript office. A hospital
in a military fort. The antiseptic
      smells mixed with the familiar
aura of ancient stones. I hold
      this moment open so I might see
who wheels me in my bassinet 
      into a room washed with equal
parts oath and allegiance.
 

Ilocanos say, Saan nga maymaysa
iti aldaw— Today is not

the only day. It might be hard
to see how this is true, given that

we find ourselves in this room  
and can only see the long hallway 

and other rooms we passed on the way
here. What a jumble of furniture,

what a labyrinth of curtains,
what a chaos of love and water and

salt painted on the walls. O naraniag 
a bulan, Un-unnoyko indengam the lover sings 

in serenade to the moon. It floats, seemingly 
remote, a silver coin in the atmosphere 

above all the petty currency of our lives.  
It's been an age since I heard these lyrics—

Toy nasipnget a lubongko/ Inka kad silawan
Tapno diak mayyaw-awan— a prayer for some

brilliance to spill into this dark,
something to point the way onward or out.

How early the light
fades at winter's approach

How quiet the wind 
moving through no leaves

How mystery unfolds:
bodies at the bottom of the cliff

In this cathedral the eye
of heaven opens and shuts

The drop and the slide 
down the hill was real, 
and coasting through thick
overgrowth of cogon grass. 
When you are a child this is
enough to disappear the world; 
to disappear other children
who ran, moments earlier, 
noisy through that small 
milky patch of wilderness. 
Strangely, you felt no panic
through the hours no one 
came to look for you. A bird 
called high in the outer 
world, its cry rippling down 
to the bottom of the bowl where 
you just floated, not trapped.

It came upon me by degrees, as my friends drove
down the winding hills. I asked if I could crack
the window open. The fog came in, slipping through 
rows of cypress trees along the cliffs. I think 
there was a wind, but perhaps it was an illusion 
created by the vehicle's speed. In films, a moment 
of tension can be depicted through a character
immovable before a window, while the landscape 
recedes or advances. I distinctly remember 
the taste of egg yolk on my tongue, from breakfast 
hours earlier. Two triangles of toast, a melange 
of spinach and cream on one side of the plate 
that couldn't quite make its way down my throat. 
I am reminded that not everything we're given 
needs to be swallowed. The trees are shrouded now, 
but they're still there. They never surrender.

It never ended. It crept slightly
behind, but kept in step. On bright

days, it remembered how you chose
yellow or yellow orange, and with

the crayon in your stubby fingers,
drew a circle with a tiara, larger 

than the moon. And when it rained,
you made a hundred slanting lines;

they fell like pins from the sky.  
No one really got stung or died but

they made an outline of a roof
and walls and somewhere a door.

I dream of miles of loamy soil
and potatoes in their winter beds,
their eyes still sealed quite shut. 
Crows pick through stones for seeds 
and nuts. I know sometimes they tear
small animals furtive in the grass,
while in our houses we dunk chunks
of bread in hot soup. Impartial,
stars leak their shine upon us all. 
What luck to feel the thumb of sleep 
on our lids, the cold a mantle 
flung across every form.

 
In front, towering
above the sidewalk edge
and the strip of soil 
that all refer to as 
city property— two pines
where night herons nest

For compost, for return
to the soil; nutrients
for the fruit tree, 
says her daughter
regarding the backyard 
unraked for months

With today's wind,
a rain of pine needles
unloosed from every
branch. Tomorrow,  
armies of leaf blowers 
down the street