Author: Luisa A. Igloria

~ after Remedios Varo (1955)


        Within each time, the contemplation 
             of time. Devices for its calibration 
and measure, the recognition of how 
       it holds up the sky in whatever quadrant 
             we might reside. See how many points of 
existence want to push through the membrane 
       of this life. All the actors gathered here, 
             garbed in their own choice of armor, 
must hear that electric humming in 
             the atmosphere. Strings of tin-can stars 
       waterfall in the room. How thin the border 
between states: outside and in, love and labor, 
             quiet and clamor. The world is no longer 
       beginning to change. It has changed. 

     is what they call the energy 
that will sunder the plates 
     which have more or less kept  
us in place in the only lifetime 
     we know; is the massive swell, 
tsunami that will rear its head 
     above cities and towns then 
make the noise of a million rushing 
     bees. Plumed emerald basilisks 
freefall from their perches to kiss 
     the ground before it disappears.
Then they'll skitter across water,
     runners looking for the finish line. 

Out here, you can go to a farm and pick
armfuls of lavender that you cut yourself 
from plots threaded through with bee-flight. 
You can walk between rows of sunflowers, 
many of them taller than you, and angle 
your head as they do toward the sun's grand, 
unfollowable trajectory. Poets write of 
fleeting gold and leaves that yellow, 
of travelers that want to be in more than one 
place at once. But even when you haven't yet 
left, the scent of impending departure 
can wash over you like early morning 
fog. In that momentary stasis, it's as if 
time itself has pearled— a string of drops 
you can carry like a prayer in your hand.    

We go to the store with bags of worn or unused
apparel— trousers that keep shrinking a few inches
more above the ankle after each wash, shoes a rich 
friend liked to send every summer after yet another 
vacation to exotic places but which we never quite 
knew where to wear. It's the same thrift store 
we've been going to for the last twenty-some years, 
where we found our coffee table— marveling at
the swirls in the solid oak surface, discounting 
the few spots of water damage that must have been
enough reason for its donation. We try to remind
ourselves: before buying anything new, consider
need. And after, consider what could go 
into recirculation. But even in the aisles of 
Children's Hospital of the King's Daughters,
there is no lack of desire. In front of a narrow
mirror by the back wall, a woman has laid a blouse 
with a vintage collar across her chest. The older 
woman next to her says Just feel that fabric— 
isn't it a dream? We're surrounded by so much 
discarded beauty: crinkled cotton, bookends 
with painted ducks; beaded sheaths, shawls, 
sun bonnets, the tiniest pink booties.

"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.