Author: Luisa A. Igloria

"I will surely bless you, and I will surely 
multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven, 
and as the sand that is on the seashore."
                                - Genesis 22: 17



My mother whispered story after story into my ear
at bedtime. In each of them, a king on a sick bed,
in a stupor. The quest to find a cure or break
a spell.

Except for a few images of my childhood home yellowing
in a box, I have nothing left. Either fire ate them,
or water swallowed them whole. 

The pictures persist, though. Cunning shapes 
crocheted into curtains— hearts and deer, lovers
touching hands; flowers massed on the mantel. 

Burned as if with solar flames through a stencil, 
heat magnified to render a wound on wood, cork,
or leather. 

In one tale, the task is to gather: a thousand pearls
from the forest floor, grains flung from a sack. 
A sieve to cup the water as it did when whole.

In another, entire kingdoms need to be roused 
from sleep— the last one to taste honey on her lips
is the one you must kiss.
 
I know that time exists by the radiance it extracts
as it spools: days into each other, days into months,
months into years like brambles. 

And its speed is relative— relative to distance,
to the way you inhabit a moment or want to flee
in search of a new hiding place; or finally,
to the knowledge there is nothing to do but
hold still. 
 

How much can it hold                    in   This body

To be free of blemish                  free of stutter


and limp   Blaze fire                 forged by the god

of cunning                             of craftsmanship


If only there was       a way to seal the perforated 

A bolus to slip under      skin   A tincture bathing


the heart and its retinue           worn down organs  

Unclasped over decades        Asterisms    Necklaces  
                                 

Look at our shiny foreheads, 
our cheeks 
           that haven't yet  
lost all trace of softness from 
youth. And look  
                at the way we
stand, our toes either pointing
awkwardly toward each other or 
fanned out 
           the way dancers' do; 
at the indentations on our shoes 
where a bone out of joint pressed 
against leather, 
                 where an insole 
cushioned uncertain tread.
But there's still
                  so much we
can't fathom, can't know
enough to prepare for—
What weather
             ahead, what state
of being in the world; how to gather
wishes 
       to make our will known.
                

         That place to which our loves
                     have been consigned after perishing 
from snake bite—    To which they've been 
         abducted and exiled after a crack 
                     in the earth opened—    A lustful god 
tore them off the sidewalk or out of the fields  
         like flowers—   It's characterized 
                     as a place from which there's no hope
of return; still, stories of negotiation
         abound—   Throw sweet breads to the dog
                     with three snarling heads—   Appeal
the terms of passage—   A mother says, trade you 
         six months of the year for six kernels 
                     of crimson fruit the girl 
couldn't help put in her mouth, so desperate 
         was her hunger—   Play heart-rendingly 
                     on your instrument so as to move
the coldest juror and melt the prison bars—  Blindness
         and the long road back—   A shorn head, loosened
                     cuffs; chains snapped for a body restored—
  

At least twice in the recent past, the man 
         I love said he felt like he'd just been 
                   struck by lightning; both times, he walked 
in the door, holding a piece of paper 
         with bad news. Approximately 90% of people 
                   struck by lightning survive. The first time
was a job loss no one saw coming. The second,
         a medical diagnosis— and we still have no 
                   idea how it will play out. And I don't know 
anyone actually struck by lightning, whether 
         or not they survived. I used to wonder, if you
                   keep thinking of something, will it happen? 
Some people call it coincidence. Some call it 
         foresight or premonition. Others say that's 
                   bullshit; but if you believe it,  
it may turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy.  
         When lightning strikes a person or object, 
                   electrical current either zaps the body
with such speed, it may not even leave a mark. Or,
         in something called a flashover, it moves 
                   just across and over the skin's  
moist surface— in this instance, there's a higher  
         chance of survival. In the late 1700s, 
                   Lichtenberg kept scrapbooks of branching, 
fern-like patterns in the wake of lightning 
         strikes— Pictures that, keranographists beieve, 
                   resemble objects in the vicinity—
a towering pine, lamp-post, or ship's mast; 
         the jagged silhouette of rocks and scrub.
                   The spine of a half-eaten fish.
 

Closer to thought 
than to sense or even
sensation— the idea 

that what was rent
may never piece 
together again.

Gold is 
used for certain 
kinds of mending—

malleable and
moldable, precious
commodity. In war-

time, you'd bury it
beside a tree or 
swallow it 

whole to make 
it part 
of you.  

At the bottom of any bright glass you might hear a slow fizz;
       bubbles going flat, the air gone pfft and stale. You worry 

constantly about how much time is left— down the apex, 
       down the drain, careening grains of sand. You harrow 

every plot that's been handed to you; no good at improv,
       fake it till you make it. Or at least you try. Like kudzu 

grown wild, your sorrows would thicken given the slightest 
       helping hand. Instead, you sharpen drawing pencils, 

index the contents of notebooks (and also the refrigerator).   
       Just keep your head down nine to five, neuf à cinq;

keep your ducks in a row, your nose to the whetstone. Skip
       lactose-laced drinks and put in some daily cardio.

Mind over matter sometimes works (ha, like for an abecedarian).
       Never thought you'd get here, but here you are, madam.

O for days that promise endlessness outside the archival;
       plush nights before everyone is marched into the ark—

quartets playing in the background could render a long hajj
       reasonably pleasant. Send a scout to look for nuclei,    

seeds, and an island on which to engineer a new start. High
       tea at 4 after labor. Not yet time to pre-empt dying.

Use it or lose it, but mind what you choose says the bailiff.
       Vanquish the vapors, toggle letters to turn bad to bud.

When you do come to the end, it'll feel and taste like the end—
       Xanthic clouds and burned cities; time of the apocalyptic.

You're not quite there yet, though. Outside the tomb,  
       zest from citrus orchards still wafts up to the azotea.     

They come together in spring or summer, 
recalling the old timbre of brass bands, 

the vision of younger sisters waking at dawn 
to put on majorette's costumes and high boots. 

Their towns' most handsome will smile and wave 
from flower-bedecked floats, and queens touch 

the edges of butterfly sleeves, lightly holding 
the pearl of a smile. Though now in other climes, 

neither frost nor sun dampen the shine of chrome 
nor the flourish of cornets and euphoniums. Saints 

dressed as children or carpenters, farmers or 
fishermen are borne aloft in the streets, gems 

of paste winking from foil-covered crowns. Rice 
grains turned into petals dyed yellow and green 

curtain each window looking out— not over fields 
and volcanoes but train tracks and city skylines.  

Sometimes I hum as I wield the knife

over the rind of a potato, over the coarse

grain holding in the sweet gold of a squash.

Some mornings when I wake and feel the old 

familiar tendrils of that unshakeable 

sadness brush against my cheeks, I want 

to curl back into the shape of my own 

skin. It takes tenderness to peel away 

what held you so long in the dark. 

And so, much as I admire the self-

containment of the daikon, also 

I can't help loving how it's blushed 

with the palest stroke of green. 
 

The wheel and the chariot. The lever,

the nail, the spirit level. That moment

when the earth was unseated as center 

of the universe, after who knows how  

many scientists were publicly condemned 

for pointing out the sun. The feather 

and the ball, dropping at the same rate 

due to gravity. The compass and the caravelle,

navigation by the stars. The printing press,

moveable type, sewing needles. Pasteurized 

milk and clean hands in the surgery. With each 

discovery, how we then proclaimed a new 

pinnacle of human success. Pyramids and 

pagodas, spices and sugar; lower death 

rates, cures for most things except

the common cold, avarice, cruelty, and 

ego. Who wants the gold medal at the end 

of this race? The athlete crumples onto

concrete in a spasm of joy and pain.