Tag: Luisa A. Igloria

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

Dear Epictetus, this is to you attributed:

This entry is part 68 of 73 in the series Morning Porch Poems: Winter 2011-12

Thou art a little soul bearing about a corpse.
And even then you were talking to all of us, weren’t you:
ghostly presences in a future that we now inhabit,
tumbling swiftly from one gate to another. Last week,

moments before the train departed the platform at the Jackson
Street station for O’Hare and the flight I had no idea
would be canceled three times before I could board— a woman
got on, breathless, asking passengers nearest the doors:

Chinatown? Chinatown? She had on a thin cloth coat,
and her short bob of greying hair was plastered to her forehead.
No one even blinked. Perhaps they couldn’t hear from whatever
was playing on their earphones, or maybe they were tourists

with no idea either. Before the doors swung shut I caught
her eye and shook my head; yelled Red line, red line, and she
darted off. I don’t know if she ever made it to her destination,
whatever that might have been. And in a related meditation

I read how Time is like a river made up of the events which
happen, and a violent stream: for as soon as a thing has been seen,
it is carried away, and another comes in its place… Therefore,
all that afternoon into evening, as thin snow began to fall again

on the tarmac, streaking the windows, chilling the glass,
seats filled and emptied, emptied and filled; and it is
as though the blue light flickering near the ceiling
of the concourse were that same river’s garment.

Passengers anxious about missed connections watched
as TV monitors showed footage of town after town in southern
Indiana hit by a single tornado— New Pekin, Henryville,
Marysville, Chelsea— before it crossed the Ohio River

into Kentucky. The hours stretched, and in their fluid arms
there might have been the call of the mourning dove, there
might have been a sparrow slight as the child borne aloft
before the dark column of air set her down in the field.

 

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

Saturday Afternoon at the Y

This entry is part 67 of 73 in the series Morning Porch Poems: Winter 2011-12

The dark-haired woman with the death’s head
tattoo wreathed by red roses and flames tosses
her three-year-old into the kiddy pool, and moments
later the child emerges, wildly laughing at the other
end of the lane divider. They do it again. Meanwhile,
I’ve recognized the man with the slight limp and
one palsied arm who sometimes works at the bakery
cafe, doing water exercises: walking from one side
of the pool to the other. Children are flinging
pink and yellow balls, slapping the chlorinated water
with paddles and foam noodles. All this, of course,
for no reason other than the pleasure of doing so.
Late afternoon sun pours through west-facing windows,
mellower counterpoint to the sauna-like haze
indoors. What did the bluebird mean by saving
his best song for the bluest sky? Or Marcus Aurelius,
who wrote about How quickly all things disappear,
in the universe the bodies themselves, but in time
the remembrance of them? When we walk out
of the building, there’s light enough still
to make plans for dinner, or a walk, or a movie
at the mall. Everyone has a piece of china
that’s never been used, shirts hanging in the closet
with their price tags still attached. The bluebird
should sing instead: Eat from the good white plate
tonight. Dress in your best coat, your purest cotton.

 

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

Bindings

This entry is part 66 of 73 in the series Morning Porch Poems: Winter 2011-12

When I was a child did you bend back my little toes
and my big toes, then wrap them in a linen bandage
for years? asks my second daughter, frustrated
that there are fewer grown up styles for size 5 feet.

*

A signature may consist of a folio or an octavo.
Sewing through the fold makes a nice journal or book—
you have to take care that the binding tape is nicely
aligned on both sides of sewing, on the spine.

*

A friend chafes at wearing his wedding band in
public; or not at all. I think I’ve only seen it once
or twice: a plain ring with a raised rim in yellow
gold. He and his wife have arguments about that.

*

The gossip of goldfinches makes a single bright thread
in the day. For a change, how nice it is to have warmth
without shadows, quiet talk, no rancor, no regret. I like
that the mull is mesh material glued to the signature set.

*

Here is the bone that burnishes smooth, that lays the papers down
with their marbled leaves. Did you know the word volume comes from
volvere, which is related to scroll, thin sheet of parchment wound
like a blind about its staff? As desire returns to its beginnings.

 

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

Punctuation

“…in which each letter is signified by a random mark.” ~ D. Bonta

 

If a spiked flare from the sun is a petal
and the petal breaks off from the crown—

If the crown is a wheel run amok
so the road blooms with rusted metal

and bad mojo— Then the firebird will hide
in plain view: tufts of flame trees, glimpsed

as you make your way from afar. Shake open
your map, walk steady along the arrow’s sight.

 

In response to How to take notes.

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

How to Flinch

“It’s emblematic of our societal discomfort with poetry that so many blurbs for poetry books use the word ‘unflinching.’ Actually, I think poets should flinch. We need to get better at flinching.” ~ Lia Purpura

 

Yes, I have eaten ants’ eggs. Faintly sweet little clusters whose honey
clicked a little between your teeth. Sometimes, parts of bodies
still clinging fiercely by a thread.

The tech on duty explained about the suction created in the vein
when pulling back against the plunger of the syringe. Let me try
again, he said, gently swabbing with alcohol.

Old wives’ remedies for warts: drops of muriatic
acid. Frog piss. A razor blade cutting
clean and across from the base.

Swarms of winged ants— thin waists, bent antennae—
after days of heavy rain. Gleam from basins of water on the porch:
I cried to see the drowned ones sheathed in their gossamer.

Dear Fyodor, how old will I be when old grief passes gradually
into quiet tender joy? For hives, sometimes I’m tempted to pass
the back of a heated spoon on raised, feverish skin.

 

In response to Heard at AWP.

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

Trail of Crumbs

“Learn to love silence and the taste of water.” ~ Dave Bonta

 

There is only a column of stones
where the fireplace used to be.

What was the thunk in the night of a green body
falling from the tree? Jackfruit, or avocado?

The heady smell from the garden is strongest
at noon: red-streaked tongues of ginger lilies.

If you take a candle and look in the mirror at midnight,
the gaunt face of your future bridegroom will appear.

No one around: waking from groggy sleep after giving birth,
finding the bathroom; jellied spiral of blood on the floor.

One memory of moonlight: my mother patiently filled spaces
between large, flat stones on the walk with smaller pebbles.

The furl of a fish fin in pond water: scallop
of vanishing rouge, tip of a mossy hieroglyph.

Dry bread, still sweet, softens in a cup of amber-
colored tea. This you can drink, and eat.

 

In response to How to lose.

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

Mosaic

“The song badly sung. The incomplete preparation. The careless remark. The unexpected and breathtaking disappointment, which we try to hide.” ~ Seon Joon

The rows of sausages looped like necklaces of marbled beads at the butcher’s.

The layer of fat congealed on the surface of stew.

The limp caused by gout.

The bare light bulb and its coated wire, suspended from the ceiling.

The fingers bloated with fluid, the morning after (not rounds of drinking, just soy sauce from last night’s Chinese takeout).

The letters on the mantel, addressed but still unsent.

The seeds that never sprouted in the flower pot.

The flammable heart, equipped with its miniature fire extinguisher in matching red.

 

In response to errata & corrigenda.

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

You could write home about any of these:

the tourists turning their faces up in the rain
to gaze at the knickers of Marilyn’s larger-
than-life-size statue, her sculpted skirt
fanned open like sampan sails in the wind—

in the shadow of a billboard that says
Occupy Your Bed, the poet in his motel room
wondering about bed bugs before drifting off,
a haze cast by traffic lights on the window—

the slim boys and girls in olive uniforms and Mao caps
emblazoned with one red star each, serving spicy hot
pot chicken and salt and pepper shrimp in Chinatown,
years away from the cultural revolution—

the nine thousand five hundred and some writers
rushing from one conference room to another, the lines
for coffee and croissants longer than discourse, fleeting
conversations with the sound of riffled pages—

the man singing Billy Joel covers at the piano
in the chop house, the waiter who sang ode
after ode to marbled steaks, their filets
and strips, their bone-in and barrel cuts—

the sky above the art institute beginning to color
like the inside of a skillet, sheen of a butter knife
lying beside a plate of fish in a Dutch still life as towns
splinter apart in the wake of tornados down south—

the man on the street corner rattling his cup of coins
breathing Sweet little momma, please help;
the stranger pointing to his camera then to his face,
bowing and saying Thank you, please, you’re welcome.

 

In response to Words on the Street.