Tag: Luisa A. Igloria

Everything’s collage, pastiche, pictures gummed atop each other; puppets strung on wire or made to bob on long sticks behind the shower curtain. Show a leg, honey; it doesn’t matter if you haven’t shaved. Whistle some kind of sarabande and curtsy. The image of the king is drawn with curlicues of paperclip wire for a beard; he’s consort to a queen dressed in petticoats of coffee filters, stiletto heels clad in leather and copper. How handsome they look, in that hipster kind of way. I strain to hear them speak, but the noise levels on the patio are much too high: clatter of dishes and coffee cups, banter across the counters; buzz of tiny machines that fit in the palm of the hand. The leaves of potted plants need moisturizing. The only one I want to talk to is the bird in a cage in the back of the room, its eye a tiny bead, surveying.

In response to Via Negativa: Fishy.

“I will not go to bed with you because/ I want to very much.” – Marilyn Hacker

Who does not want that kind of stubborn love, weaving down a road full of uncertain certainty, a glass of some fortifying spirit in hand, a clutch of what passes for worldly provision in the other? Everyone’s such a cynic— all sentiment is suspect these days, all language mannered. There are at least a thousand synonyms for careful, though not all the money in the world could buy enough insurance. Long-sleeved oxfords now have little pockets sewn on the sleeves: for the heart, of course. They’re not to be worn out anymore. So then, I won’t be redundant. There go the runners in the race, true to form, bodies glistening from the earnestness of effort. Sometimes it’s a baton they pass, sometimes a torch. It’s the tiny lights bobbing off into the distance when you lean out the window into the dark. It’s the lick of flame circling the pond just before the koi swim away as one body from view.

In response to Via Negativa: My Dream About Being Robbed.

turned into wine but wine

turning back into water,
that which was a great

distance away returning
of its own accord;

that which we most feared
to lose, appearing motionless

though set in flight, so buoyant now
above the roofs and rooted stones.

In response to Via Negativa: My Dream About Learning to Dance.

a hallway to row like a sea—

Give me a berth and the green-
ribboned bookmark of coast

jutting up where before
there was nothing but empty

sky, to say I have arrived—
after months without fresh

water, months without oranges,
months without letters

tied to the backs of
homing birds.

In response to Via Negativa: Bequest.

at each other when they spoke,

it occurred to me I’d rather be
where it is early morning

or late at night,
the silence punctuated

only by conversation
in the lower registers,

by the slight
sound that bodies make

even barely pressing
against each other—

In response to Via Negativa: Crickets.