Author: Luisa A. Igloria

Grandmother, did you ever think
you’d live to see this day?

Frogs are falling from the sky
into the dry paddies; soon

the sizzle of their skins
will sound like rain.

In response to Via Negativa: Apocryphon.

In response to Via Negativa: Beside the stream.

Do you want an earring? Do you want
a sweet? Do you want a garland of flowers
thick as husks, like pearls of teeth?

Do you want to stroll on the pier,
sit on the bridge in the rain, dangle
your feet in water slick as oil?

The slugs in the garden have been
so patient at their work, embroidering
holes in the leaves while we slept.

Drink up: let’s wash our faces while
we can in this waterfall, where words
for loss and finding are braided ropes.

In response to Via Negativa: Idler.

An island of ferns has sprouted
beneath the bay window, fronds
curled like fingers.

Dear ___, There are so many things
we’ve taken for granted. What I’d give
to know the origins of stories merely
cobbled from desperation out of the past.
For instance, do you know what year it was
when my father graduated from college,
when and where he landed his first job?
What size shoe did he wear, what hatband?
I woke with a start this morning, everything
still pitched in darkness, no molten outline
yet around the shutters. All I could think of
was that day in summer— was it 19__? when we
came upon him sobbing in a garden chair,
clutching a letter to his chest. He was
no longer young when he married, when he
went against all expectations of family
and class. But he was a man, that was
the difference. Had he been like us,
had he been female, none of what he did
would have passed muster. A favorite son
eventually is forgiven; a boy will have
his way. Do you wonder how he felt,
sensing the end pressing more palpably
at the edges? What is success? What
does it mean to have made a life? He had
few assets, no investments. Old before he
reached his prime, past noon he sat and dozed
or dreamed under the bougainvillea vines.
In a window bay, unmoving; clutching a string
of prayer beads— Sometimes this is how we
came upon him: milky eyes closed, light
filtered through a crown of soft grey hair.

In response to Via Negativa: Eucharist.

In second grade, for a science demonstration, the teacher took a needle out of a sewing case, stroked it with a magnet, stuck it through a disc of cork and laid it on the surface of a glass of water where it floated and spun— the bulge that held the weight of the needle, the water that pushed as molecules clung to each other at the same time that they searched for what pulled them north.

*

What pulled them north was the promise of cooler air, a homestead to call their own, a city where they could begin their lives. Everyone wants a kingdom to call their own. And so they packed their bags, loaded a truck, broke away from what the heated mercury of family defined.

*

Not always hot to the touch, but always mercurial: atmospheres like hot springs, otherwise glacial. No easy way to withstand what clings stronger than molecules, generates the most surface tension.

*

There are bridges suspended on cables so thin it seems almost impossible that they can bear any weight at all. Even the fog tiptoes through them.

In response to Via Negativa: Hydrologic.

has no name
to the birds

that wade
in its waters,

fish for frogs,
crabs, lizards—

The labor of
a day is earned

with flick and fold
of wing, quick

thrust beneath
a rippled film—

In response to Via Negativa Home economics.

Don’t open that
parasol indoors—
a hail of spiders
will plague you.

*

Don’t throw away
the sweetbreads:
charred, they’ll yield
our readable fortunes.

*

Don’t point
the serving-
spoon handles toward
the early death.

*

Don’t strip the meat
down to the knob
of the joint that is
the jealous god’s.

*

If you must leave, having
no more stomach for the meal,
we’ll turn our plates
like steering wheels.

In response to Via Negativa: Hangman.