Author: Luisa A. Igloria

What's the worst thing 
that could happen? is a question
you're told you should think about
when on the brink of anxiety. Loaded 
question, that. You might say a truck 
throttling down the road could ram 
through the front porch and screech 
to a stop in the living room. You might 
forget to turn off the burner or the water 
and come home to cinders or a flood. 
A proliferation of irregular blooms
might come to light, encircled by contrast 
dye. The worst thing that could happen, 
therefore, is that we die. But is anyone 
you know— or are you— dead right now? 
No? Then perhaps you can go out in the night 
and observe what goes on and off, not caring 
how many times. Frog calls. Fireflies.  

“Yea, and if some god shall wreck me in
the wine-dark sea, even so I will endure..."
                     ~ Homer, The Odyssey


The tossup is always and again 
between fate and free will; absence 
of choice, versus a universe of unlimited 
options. Remember how the cafeteria used 
to advertise "Choice of Ice Cold Milk?"  
But in the hit movie about multiverses,
the central question that the main
character asks is What if. What if 
she had obeyed her father and married 
someone else— would she wind up facing
an impending divorce and bankruptcy? 
Would her daughter not be stricken 
with angst and dysphoria, wear normal
clothes, speak sweetly without yelling?
Sometimes the only possible answer 
seems to be Yes. But mostly, this is
the life you've come to know: trash 
pickup every Thursday, recycling 
every  two weeks. Doctor visits, 
bloodwork, the uncertainty of 
results, the fear of what comes next. 
Pizza or Chinese takeout Fridays.  
Fortune cookies for dessert. 

Crows in the gardenia bush.
Driveways exiting onto asphalt.
One dark speck: a fishing boat; 
early morning, the sea 
clear as glass.

Glove or no glove, it fits
roundly, beautifully pink
and unscratched in my hand. 
I bought it at Logan Airport 
years ago, returning from a trip 
during which I read some poems 
in a couple of college writing 
classrooms. But not once has anyone 
ever thrown it across a yard or grassy 
field flecked with dandelions in early
summer, toward an eager child  
ready with a mitt still a little too large 
for her hand. Not once has it splintered 
an upstairs window to a chorus of shouts.
Perhaps it simply went the way most things 
meant to serve as reminder or memento 
go— on a shelf, then in a box with the stuffed 
bunny and baby shoes; then shuffled from  
move to move until it resurfaces. So I admire 
the sixty-five year old woman, a competitive 
slalom skateboarder whose well-used skateboard 
and team bag are displayed in a Skate Museum. 
When she screams as she loops through giant 
slalom courses, it's because she's scared
and happy at the same time. When I hear 
a loud bang from somewhere down the road, 
I guess it could be either gunshots, 
or a car backfiring. 

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