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Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

How it goes

Under the table she swings and swings
her feet. They still look girlish, but

for the pucker of old flesh behind each
knee; and the bunion pushing against

the worn fabric of shoe. It pains to imagine
how she gropes her way in the dark from bedroom

to bathroom then lies back down on a mattress
almost as old as me; or longs for a blue flame

at midnight to heat water in a kettle for tea.
Meanwhile the wind whistles through gaps

in the floor: its long trail a daily laceration,
coming from far away. It says when you’re young

you want to make your fame by doing something
outrageous, something that strives for importance.

When you’re older you start not giving a fuck,
not making apologies. And then when you’re old

you want merely not to have to beg to rest your bones
inside the shell of a cup, inside a linen-lined trunk.

 

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

Seriously

The corpse of a bee hangs
six feet above the garden;
the writing spider is nowhere
to be found. So why do ducks’
feet have webbing? Two
nylon ropes were knotting
under the pier. Have you
fallen asleep yet? Dreams
make the best worst jokes.
They start and clear
their throats but then
never conclude. When
was the last time you
were in that country?
No one is clapping.

 

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Withheld

At the office all the morning, then to the ‘Change, and so home to dinner, where Luellin dined with us, and after dinner many people came in and kept me all the afternoon, among other the Master and Wardens of Chyrurgeon’s Hall, who staid arguing their cause with me; I did give them the best answer I could, and after their being two hours with me parted, and I to my office to do business, which is much on my hands, and so late home to supper and to bed.

at the office so many kept
their best answer
their two parted hands


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 15 September 1664.

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

The future, through a gap in the world

There are folders and old newspapers in every corner and more than forty bags of mildewed clothes in the foyer, in the spare room— nobody now knows what is in them. Aunty has finally agreed to let the cleaning women take them to the gate for the next trash pickup. There may have been silks ties serge suits a yellow sheath with a ribbon on one shoulder. Dark sable slippers with holes in the arch. Trousers in a small houndstooth check sweater sets of mohair navy skirts of plain cotton. White slips with small rosettes and lace trim a tan leather coat with brass buttons and two breast pockets once borrowed by nephew S. without asking the summer he came into town. Sixteen but eager to get his driver’s license early he begged uncle to use some of his influence at the city hall. Maybe in one of them is the fleecy bathrobe with two pockets— one for holding a folded novena to St. Jude and the other a pair of nailclippers. And the yellow shirt with rust colored dots that uncle liked to wear each new year’s eve the one with a dark stain on the cuff from forgetting at the last minute to toss a firecracker into the yard. Sometimes we are seized with fear like that or a sudden pall of misunderstanding. Perhaps that’s when the world kind of stands still. Then part of the future comes through the haze like a warning. And it is so strange and frightening it roots us to the spot. We don’t even feel the small flames beginning to eat at the outlines of our hands.

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Contractor in hell

Up, and wanting some things that should be laid ready for my dressing myself I was angry, and one thing after another made my wife give Besse warning to be gone, which the jade, whether out of fear or ill-nature or simplicity I know not, but she took it and asked leave to go forth to look a place, and did, which vexed me to the heart, she being as good a natured wench as ever we shall have, but only forgetful.
At the office all the morning and at noon to the ‘Change, and there went off with Sir W. Warren and took occasion to desire him to lend me 100l., which he said he would let the have with all his heart presently, as he had promised me a little while ago to give me for my pains in his two great contracts for masts 100l., and that this should be it. To which end I did move it to him, and by this means I hope to be, possessed of the 100l. presently within 2 or 3 days.
So home to dinner, and then to the office, and down to Blackwall by water to view a place found out for laying of masts, and I think it will be most proper. So home and there find Mr. Pen come to visit my wife, and staid with them till sent for to Mr. Bland’s, whither by appointment I was to go to supper, and against my will left them together, but, God knows, without any reason of fear in my conscience of any evil between them, but such is my natural folly. Being thither come they would needs have my wife, and so Mr. Bland and his wife (the first time she was ever at my house or my wife at hers) very civilly went forth and brought her and W. Pen, and there Mr. Povy and we supped nobly and very merry, it being to take leave of Mr. Bland, who is upon going soon to Tangier. So late home and to bed.

I made a jade city for the heart
to have a heart in

I hope to be possessed by evil
but very civilly


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Wednesday 14 September 1664.

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

Mother I carry like a child

Don’t tell
Speak of something else

Don’t play
with matches or your own heat

Don’t stick your fingers
into dirty holes

Close your eyes
as the throat opens with each bearing down

Do you want me
to return you to your real home

I am smoke or sugar
or its more homely double

I was the arms that raised you
not the belly you were riven from

 

In response to Via Negativa: Caregiver.

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Fishing

Up and, to the office, where sat busy all morning, dined at home and after dinner to Fishmonger’s Hall, where we met the first time upon the Fishery Committee, and many good things discoursed of concerning making of farthings, which was proposed as a way of raising money for this business, and then that of lotterys, but with great confusion; but I hope we shall fall into greater order.
So home again and to my office, where after doing business home and to a little musique, after supper, and so to bed.

where I fish
where the fish course and eat
we fall into greater order
into a music


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Tuesday 13 September 1664.

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

Thinning

When did it start, the stockpiling
of new with old and dirty clothing,

the thirty-plus umbrellas gathered on
the flimsy stair railing? And in every

cubby of a hutch that once held highball
and footed ice cream glasses, punch bowl,

oval party plates, the kind with a round
depression at one end on which to rest

the bottom of a cup— decades’ worth
of sundry papers, magazines saved from

another time; plastic bags stuffed with used
water bottles. I remember a mint green set

of Jadeite mixing bowls, their cool swirl
pattern. And a Pyrex flameware saucepan

with a metal ring and spout, put to double
duty as cake pan. A door to door salesman

once sold her a pair of waist-high carved
Chinese cinnabar vases; she did not bargain,

did not check if the price was fair. What drove
my father crazy: the way she took such time

adjusting clothing, hair, makeup while he sat
in the car and ordered his driver to honk

the horn. When they were gone, a pink cloud
of fragrance left behind on her vanity; powder-

puff, uncapped bottle of Chanel No. 5. It hurts
to ponder where her rings have gone, the ones she

loosely wore on increasingly arthritic fingers:
if they’re among the bagged detritus of the years,

or if their stones lie in a musty pawnshop drawer.
There’s so much I despair of being able to account for,

or ransom. At what cost: an overhaul, a grand redemption?
This is how fortunes we never had yet dwindle. This

is how the years flense the body: layer by layer, until
what’s left is a sheath strung, slight, on bones.

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Caregiver

Up, and to my cozen Anthony Joyce’s, and there took leave of my aunt James, and both cozens, their wives, who are this day going down to my father’s by coach. I did give my Aunt 20s., to carry as a token to my mother, and 10s. to Pall.
Thence by coach to St. James’s, and there did our business as usual with the Duke; and saw him with great pleasure play with his little girle, like an ordinary private father of a child.
Thence walked to Jervas’s, where I took Jane in the shop alone, and there heard of her, her master and mistress were going out. So I went away and came again half an hour after. In the meantime went to the Abbey, and there went in to see the tombs with great pleasure. Back again to Jane, and there upstairs and drank with her, and staid two hours with her kissing her, but nothing more. Anon took boat and by water to the Neat Houses over against Fox Hall to have seen Greatorex dive, which Jervas and his wife were gone to see, and there I found them (and did it the rather for a pretence for my having been so long at their house), but being disappointed of some necessaries to do it I staid not, but back to Jane, but she would not go out with me. So I to Mr. Creed’s lodgings, and with him walked up and down in the New Exchange, talking mightily of the convenience and necessity of a man’s wearing good clothes, and so after eating a messe of creame I took leave of him, he walking with me as far as Fleete Conduit, he offering me upon my request to put out some money for me into Backewell’s hands at 6 per cent. interest, which he seldom gives, which I will consider of, being doubtful of trusting any of these great dealers because of their mortality, but then the convenience of having one’s money, at an houre’s call is very great.
Thence to my uncle Wight’s, and there supped with my wife, having given them a brave barrel of oysters of Povy’s giving me.
So home and to bed.

I carry my mother like a child
upstairs and down

talking of the necessity
of wearing good clothes

offering my hands which I trust
because of their mortality

her having given them
giving me me


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Monday 12 September 1664.

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

Only the beginning

of hurricane season, only
the beginning of fall.
Speckled leaves detach
from the fig and the oaks,
and the gum begins to drop
its spiked grenades. Where
will the water go after it
has risen, and forced its way
across hardened pavements?
Only the beginning of gradual
darkening: no longer the late
luxuries of sun and lounging
in the shade. Soon the clocks
enact their artificial stay
on time so we might sleep in
an hour or two. Salt bores
its damp fragrance again
into wood: window frames,
dock pilings; swells the sockets
of joints with the ache of rain
and cold. Only the somber
glimmer of shortened days now;
the season only beginning.