Author: Luisa A. Igloria

Dawn: a thin band of vivid pink. I glance down at my coffee,
and when I look back it’s gone, the sky is gray.

In the crowded station, volatile citrus spray.
I look around but cannot find the orange rind.

New girl at the coffee shop— Between taking orders, her brown
barrette glints like a clipped accent from somewhere else.

Where did the four green slices of starfruit go?
The pineapples on the serving plate are silent.

Last night, in my living room, the poet who wrote of temples
and butterflies slid off his sandals and padded barefoot to the dinner table.

—Luisa A. Igloria
02.09.2011

In response to today’s Morning Porch entry.

UPDATE: Some more poems happening in the comment thread over there.

Last night’s wet snow sticks here
or there, creating alpine trails
beneath the shadow of low walls,
leaving blank spaces where the wind
has drawn its hasty maps and then
like some cartographer unsure
of where the continents might lie,
erased them… In one of these
pockets drawn as wintry latitudes,
bergamot heads confer, a little
brotherhood of toques blanches.

—Luisa A. Igloria
02.08.2011

In response to today’s Morning Porch entry.

“Caeditur et tilia ante jugo levis…”
(“A light linden-tree also is felled betimes for the yoke…”)
–Virgil, Georgics I

Inside, all the clocks are blinking,
as though even time could not fully
wake to Monday morning. Should I walk
down the hall and flip each limp clock face,
counting and stretching in succession?
They droop along the mantel’s edge, unstuffed
quesadillas before the hot comal and the salsa picante.
Did you know that if you put ham and cheese
between two flour tortillas, you have instead
what they call a syncronizada? Cut into pie-
shaped wedges they might resemble six
two-hour bites of the clock, which might explain
the reference to time-keeping. Or perhaps
it’s simply from our habits of always
keeping time, watching the clock: no more
than three minutes in the shower, five
to grab a coffee and banana, an hour to get
the kids to school and ourselves to work
if we should be so lucky; an hour for lunch,
a morning for sifting through the flour
and meal of correspondence… Who
has the time anymore to notice the squirrel
tunneling back into the icy snow, the neighbor
walking to his truck a quarter mile away?
Above our heads, the rough-hewn hours
shift into shapes of ploughs. Soon,
along the avenues, leaves will mottle
the linden trees: whole libraries of green
lifting their faces in a chorus to work and time.

—Luisa A. Igloria
02.07.2011

In response to today’s Morning Porch entry.

“Look at the birds in the sky. They do not sow or reap
or gather into barns…”
Matthew 6:26

The sky and ground are the same
flat white, as if for once the sights
trained by the worm low in the earth
and that of the bird dangling from a branch
have merged with one another, and now
there is no difference between earth
and heaven, duty and desire. Your mother cheers
the squirrel bounding over the icy crust; and mine,
by text from thousands of miles away, reminds me
of small creatures that do not glean or gather,
and yet increase. In a book fallen open
on my lap, a poet I’ve just met* has penned
a song of sorry lovers, who’ve whispered
“Take me. You know you want to.” In this world,
how are we supposed to know how all these bridges
connect to one another, why it is that some exact
a toll while at others, the way seems clear as bright
ribbons of space and light, merging with the horizon.

—Luisa A. Igloria
02.05.2011

*Kelli Russell Agodon, “Song of the Sorry Lovers”, from Letters from the Emily Dickinson Room (White Pine, 2010)

In response to today’s Morning Porch entry.

Dim sun, your soft
floury edges today
make me think of steam
clouds under a wicker basket,
pillowy mounds of dough
pulled into a pucker
atop sweet or savory buns…
Let the glittery icicles
on twigs and branches trade
their hard-edged, fishnet-
stockinged gossip above us all,
here at an oilcloth-covered table
in a little hole in the wall
where the air is fragrant
with ginger and scallions
and dark plum sauce.

—Luisa A. Igloria
02.04.2011

In response to today’s entry at Moving Poems.

With every pass, the old broom sheds
pieces of straw. Across the porch,
a covering of snow. Chop wood,
carry water, kindle fire.
Remember the charm that pulled
the town back from under
a river of bubbling porridge—
At the edge of the wood the girl
twirls in her skirt of feathers:
ruby-red, pomegranate-red,
calling out danger.

—Luisa A. Igloria
02.03.2011

In response to today’s entry at Moving Poems.

Fallen branches ring
the dead cherry, each bearing

a row of teeth. The air
is soft now that the rain

has stopped: milky gruel,
thin salty broth we drink

and drink from the rim
of the bowl. So many nights

to have gone without sleep.
So many days we have walked,

fingers curled tight into palms.
So much sound in the crackly

air. We are so hungry now.
We are so eager for the dish

of melted ice in which to dunk
the loaves of dreams.

—Luisa A. Igloria
02.02.2011

In response to today’s Morning Porch entry.

Persistent voice, you tug at my ear
in the dark— against a snowy field,
the modulated click and swish
like metal filings finding each
other on a plate, their movements
careening into some coherency
or form. Beneath the sleeves
of trees, wintering arms
are dreaming of all kinds of things—
sleet, raindrops; the blue-green
sheen of eucalyptus leaves.
A silken cord passed through
a needle. The pungent spray
from spiraled rinds I peel
away from blood-oranges.

—Luisa A. Igloria
02.01.2011

In response to today’s Morning Porch entry.