Tag: Luisa A. Igloria

“cursor is Latin: not one who curses
…but one who runs” ~ D. Bonta

And after the floodwaters receded, a few steps away
from the fountain of the oldest university on the other
side of the world, a giant catfish was found: its rough-

sleek back the color of slate, its bloodied whiskers
stiffening as the sun returned. There was no
sign of the dove coming back with a flag of green,

no olive branches spreading their arms in the middle
of a field. From windows of makeshift shelters,
the stricken looked out upon the city’s mud-

slicked streets. Like odd-shaped pieces of bread,
roofs of houses float upon the waters. The heads
of the gathered are too many to count.

In response to Via Negativa: Cursor.

On the third floor,
rows of boxes lean against
one wall. I no longer know
what’s in them: cables,
books, picture frames?
It doesn’t seem to matter.

*

But today I unwrapped
presents we were given years
ago: one glass kettle with
a blue marble on its lid, a pair
of hand-painted candlesticks;
one hand-crocheted tablecloth
trellised in tiny daisies.

*

We went for a walk
as the sun scalded
the hulls of ships
vermillion, one last
time before giving
in to the dark.

*

Has anyone ever
given you an Indian
rope burn? Voices
of children darting
through jets of water
at the fountain.

*

Quaint towns along
the coast, houses with
wraparound porches.
Perhaps a clearer
view of summer
skies from there.

In response to cold mountain (56): one thing.

Once, I wept long and hard for a prize I wanted so badly but had not won.
It’s painful to learn how skin after skin is shed, in continuous passage.

There was a game we used to play, to come back to ourselves: in the middle of fleeting
thought, someone would call Stop. We’d search within for a foothold, in passage.

The potter urges clay upon the wheel into a shape, then feeds it to the fire. Glaze
and slip applied under noon’s vacant heat: a body emerges out of the kiln, in passage.

From a hospital bed in upstate New York, my friend calls tonight to say she’s been moved
to rehab. After a stroke, her left side is numb; the simplest movement is arduous passage.

I used to take everything for granted, she says. Today it took me fifteen minutes to slide
a button into its hole. The man who made my leg brace lost one arm as a soldier, in passage.

Am I selfish when I confess that sometimes I feel the ones I love most are the ones
that might do me in? My heart tumbles its load like a laundry machine: damp passage.

Crickets sing, metallic in the evenings. In the distance, lightning answers. We turn
the TV on to watch the late night news: chance of hail, thunderstorms in passage.

In response to small stone (118) and small stone (117).

Never challenge an onion to a game of strip poker. ~ D. Bonta

Ashes can substitute for black pepper in a pinch.
Best used fresh, like everything else; and only sparingly.
Carbon: it all breaks down into carbon anyway—
don’t worry, no need to bring out the syrup of ipecac,
expectorate, induce. What’s the most odious thing you’ve had to eat?
Foie gras, shudders my friend the wealthy doctor. Ducks fed
grain by gavage— two to four times a day, the animals
held, their throats expanded under a funnel fitted to a tube.
It’s this wild dilation and overfeeding that renders
king-sized livers: two lobes of mousse-like, buttery consistency.
Leafed out like that upon a plate, punctuated with a dollop of
mustard cream or raspberry confit: could you bear to eat with
nary a twinge of conscience or remorse? It may be that a stew
of carrots, lentils, and potatoes is neither innocent: some hand
pulled tubers out of the soil, peeled or pared and sliced them into
quadrants on the chopping board. You know how dominoes cascade,
rush river-like? Caveat: they fall at the merest touch. Why
sing to pickled things in a minor key? For
the ice sheet in Greenland that has almost all melted, for sea
urchins that, even if they might not be currently endangered, could
very soon wind up on that list: admire their powerful scraping jaws
which I found out are called “Aristotle’s lanterns.” None will be
exempt from ruin and devastation— so quit behaving like
you’ll have a golden ticket out. Heed the poet who points out
zen in the onion’s innermost chamber: stripped clean, empty.

In response to Via Negativa: How to cook.

No curtain between rooms, no wall could keep out the unseemly or un-ignorable. Bindings are always coming undone; treads wear down to the shaft. But sweet currents live there, too— those quickenings resembling the flutter of garments with an open weave, paper thin as onion skins we used to write all our missives on, in dark, rich inks. You prime a sheet of Canson with a quick wash of water, then apply a drop of color with just the tip of the brush: then watch it spread like a rumor of lace across its surface. I have come to the conclusion, therefore, that intention is never a single arrow shot into the dark; is not a line to draw, without a waver or a tremble in the wrist, from one end of a long hallway to the other. I suspect it might not even be about starting or stopping, getting waylaid, detoured, shanghaied, hijacked, distracted or seduced— Not that the air might not be laden with the scent of salt or jasmine, coffee or bitter greens, engine oils, blood, or sex; but only that every narrative must find its own particular plot. And those dull yearning aches: sometimes they are the only stand-ins for that cheering squad or Greek chorus. Their prompts are quicker than the clapper on a movie set.

In response to I have wandered like a flood.