Author: Luisa A. Igloria

How will you go about finding that thing
the nature of which is totally unknown
to you? asks Meno. I don’t know, dear,
I want to say; or, you ask far too many
difficult questions. Does the wren’s
endless chirping sound like a query
about immortal life, about what the soul
might have brought in its carry-on luggage
when it traveled here from its previous life?
You talk about anamnesis, or what the soul
knows innately so that it should be no
big shakes to meditate upon and recollect
these in the here and now. So then why
do I wring my hands, most days, from not
knowing the littlest thing? Weather,
for starters, but not only; more crucial,
those big important questions that rattle
at the windows all night long: like how
much time do I have to get my act together
before curtains? When is the intermission?
Or, can I go out, just by myself for a long
walk, and not have to come back so soon?
It’s April but some flakes blow about
in the wind, each lacy cutout different
from the others. You catch a few of them
on the edge of your dark sleeve before
their brief outlines melt. Their souls—
where do they return, and do they bear
back with them all that radiant and
intricate design, spoked like a wheel?

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

For Lent, the rule was no sweets, and fish
on Fridays; less music on the radio, less TV,
less rowdiness and laughing in general (but one
could giggle behind one’s hands if necessary).
And on Holy Thursday we went to church to see
a row of unshod men seated before the altar,
waiting for the priest to wash and dry and oil
their feet: the plumber, the carpenter, the banker,
the fire chief, the kanto boy, the grandfather.
On Good Friday flagellants paraded down
the streets, vermillion stripes growing across
their backs, rude thorns circling their brows.
And in the evening we visited six or seven
churches, tiers of votive candles keeping vigil.
In the middle of the aisle, statue of the body
crucified, laid prone on a cloth of blood-red
velvet. After all these years, this is what I
remember most: the cold, pale arch of the foot,
the painted-on wound on painted flesh which,
bending, we were meant so reverently to kiss.

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

What would I give to be a vein on the side of the red maple whose leaves tremble in the wind? I want to be plucked like that again, tuned to singing. The bees stumble into the storm door and later, there are clumps of yellow, tracks the color of fenugreek or pine bombs or birch. Little pools by the road film over with pollen, daubed thick as paint. The light can hardly strike where all this matter congeals. I cannot ignore it. I cannot turn away. I want to scour every pot I own until each grainy bottom reflects a face which used to match the corona of blue flame heat for heat, glare for glare. Every now and then I crave the iron taste of swamp spinach, the thin scraps that tether marrow to the inside of bone. Something true, unapologetic; something that doesn’t merely settle into the background, fade into the atmosphere, trick you into thinking this is all there can be, and nothing more.

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

This is all you have, this life, this patch of ground marked by wood and water, a little strand of caterpillar silk caught on low shrubs at the wood’s edge. Everything happens here, or doesn’t happen, or is about to change. Shadows lift at dawn, noon strikes the top of the stone cherub’s head in the middle of the square. Pigeons blend in among the cobblestones. It’s not much, you think: a sleepy town, the cats in the alley, the same old men playing chess in the park; the row of tailor shops, the bakers pitching bread into the fire. The loaves get a little smaller every year, though they remain as sweet. The lovers with only one place to walk. The seawall. The pier. The post office at one end of the main street, the market at the other. Rain drips down every house post and gutter. Flowers and whitewash on grave markers. You can leave if you want, rent a room in some city crisscrossed by wires and steel. On every rooftop, gargoyles opening their mouths to the rain, drinking it all in but never filling, never filled. Crossing the street, you turn, distracted by a scent— flowering wisteria, japonica, spilling their urgent message over a stone boundary. Nothing leaves, merely decants to color, to sediment, to underlying pulse.

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

outdoor lamp, impossible blossom; bronze
target we can never hit dead center
with knives— you clear the ridge
faster than smoke: only your saffron
thumbprint among dust motes in the leaves.

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

Fill in the blanks: Hello ___,
I am ill and would die

for more ___. Respectfully, ___.
I am ill as you know and ill-

prepared for the day: read to me
again those lines that say how

All that is wild is tamed by love—
though I can tell you when even

the sun struggles to shine,
when even the birds refuse to eat

from the same tree as their mates.
Like new money, the blooms

of the locust tree weigh down
the branches. I am certain

it is you I seek: the coin
of an answer, before all is lost.

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.