Tag: Luisa A. Igloria

Consider the mind of indirection,
how an arrow might travel through it

as through an amber-colored medium:
thickly spangled with motes and relics

from its previous lives— dangle
of severed insect legs, clumps of dust

or grains of pollen, parts of the hive
collapsed from collective industry

of what’s meant to sate the hunger—
And it might be difficult to navigate

one clear course from a given point
to its supposed destination,

for the minuscule pockets of air
traveling up and down are slower

than grill elevators, their pulleys oiled
with molasses— Still, the days grow long

to darken pools of collected gold: thick plot,
dense hold of what we hope will weather sweeter.

~ *after Mary Ruefle

– after seon joon

Because delight is a little white boat
I will gather up my hair, hitch up my skirts,
and lower myself into its hold.

Because risk is a splintered seat
I will push off first with just the toe
of one foot before I lean and let go.

Because delight is a glistening applause
I will learn that I can lower my eyes
to the more homely sting of tears.

Because risk is a wind in the leaves
I will take what needs to be released
to a hill and open my hands.

Because delight is the small flame
in the altar of the eyes, I will be
apprentice acolyte.

Because risk is the god of our beating breath
I will row until my arms are bronzed
and muscled cadence.

Because delight is the yellow star of a crocus
I will tell the winter blooms of paper-
white that they are also loved.

Because risk is the radius of winter
I will not spend all its days
bargaining over the cost of spring.

Because delight is a name I know
I will practice my cursive
in the richest ink.

Because risk is a body I love
I will let it take me by the hand,
turn and turn me before the dip.

In response to thus: Three, with photograph.

This winter let’s unwrap
the parcels we were given
at a wedding years ago:
glass candelabra now marry
the melting tallow, pewter
dish to heat and cool
the leavings of tomorrow.

In response to Via Negativa: The snows of yesteryear.

Stone of petty accusation, stone that rolls
from year to year increasing in volume
and dumb heft— You do not look good
in the garden. You do not look good,
not even as a paperweight.

In response to small stone (259).

on every skin that envelopes the body—
Dress, touch, glance; brief kiss
that nicks at the hinge or join;
welt fine as lace or flushed
as copper in the fire.

In response to thus: in progress.

“… dusty fields. A white sun above. All this road, going.” ~ Dorothee Lang

The line is a thread. The thread is a piece in a weft of fabric. The thread pushed forward and back by the bobbin, from a pin, from an implement that pushes the furrows and turns the field into rows and rows. Today I listened to the radio story on two sisters, factory pieceworkers in Bangladesh. How the older one was married off to a man chosen by her parents because they thought he would be able to provide. The reporter said she didn’t laugh anymore. She is maybe 23, has a daughter, 7 years old, cared for by others in the village. But she talks about not wanting to visit the family home because she is angry at her parents who have ruined her life. The reporter says I am sorry, I made you cry. The younger sister did not have to do the same thing— by the time she hit her teens, there was one other choice besides arranged marriage: go to work in the factory. I see in my mind’s eye hundreds of girls like her, thousands, washing in the commons behind the building, twisting their damp hair into knots. Think of shadows in the alleys interrupted by the fluttering flags of laundry hanging from tenement windows. The soot on the walls from their kerosene lamps, the meal they will share, sitting on their haunches on the floor. A curtain doubles as a door, doubles as a wall, a screen. But there is a TV. And a cellphone. They talk about how they make T-shirts: what stitches, what seams, how the collar must come to a point at the bottom of the V. Endless days like these. Like a road they hope will take them somewhere better. Every now and then a torn fingernail, close brush with the needle and the cutter. One of the girls thinks with a start of the thousand bodies folded and crushed, thin as cloth beneath stone. She was only thinking of the rhinestone earrings she bought at the market stall, of wearing it on the next free day, an outing at the coast.

In response to Via Negativa: Four Blogs from Germany.