Tag: Luisa A. Igloria

Fiat justitia ruat caelum.
(Let justice be done though the heavens fall.)

The bodies are no longer there. They’ve dug them up
and carried them off, exhumed from shallow graves.

They’ve laid them out and counted, set torsos and limbs
aright, sewed shut the seams. The sea cannot be their grave.

Who made the pile of fresh dirt at the woods’ edge?
They gored and slit the very air. Oh most depraved.

Not even the womb was sacred. Not kin, not friend, not
bystander. Not hair, not skin struck by gun barrel or stave.

What are they worth, who are no longer here? Warped leaves
in the canopy condemn the unresolved: they won’t forgive.

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

(“The word is constructed from Greek, petra, meaning stone + ichor, the fluid that flows in the veins of the gods in Greek mythology.”)

Let me know if that much-touted prospect of the future
is coming in the shape of a funnel cloud, or if it will be

the whiff of something sour despite the absence of wind—
There’s only the barest motion in the air, and today’s

forecast of rain, gone before mid-afternoon. Indoors,
I’m screwing replacement filters in these plug-in room

fresheners: oils of cinnamon and burnt clove, balsam
spruce. The outlets are low: a small billow of scent

curls around our ankles. A trace of it stays at
my wrists until I wash it off. Remind me again

what you whispered in my ear some time ago. Whoever
writes the history of rain will have to remember

how molecules loosen and bind, how heat creates that
chemical smell: imprint of limbs upon linen,

slight rearrangement and catch in the breath.
Dust and earth seared by lightning.

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

Dear heart, before the sun can overthrow all the sturm und drang caused by restlessness in the sheets, too much caffeine, and that over-decorated danseuse named guilt waltzing in your ballrooms especially when nights are longer, look close at the beds in the garden— There are tiny spires beneath summer’s leftover foliage, cities of frost spangled with brittle diadems. Look at the miniature hanging bridges on the outskirts, the lined streets leading to the plaza devoid of movement. Spires, casements shut: who’s sleeping there? who’ll ring the bells in the bell-tower? In a few hours, it’ll be warm enough to melt them all: not even a sigh left behind. Meanwhile, in the Cinema Paradiso that plays all the time in my head, the music in the opening scene is always indistinguishable from the breeze that parts the curtains, draws the eye in toward the complicated interiors. There’s the linen cloth, the table where lemons lie on a ceramic plate. Maybe I’m making parts of this up. Maybe the plate is tin, or maybe it’s a bowl. But there is no mistaking the wistful light that brushes them, so that even in black and white or sepia, a spray of citrus, a stroke of rosemary, perforates the air.

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

The box you sent came in the mail today,
the three jam jars intact— I did not know
the local orchards now have kumquat, enough
to turn into a thriving industry. We love
the bagful of pastillas, each bite just
as we remember, toasted milk-sweet in fluted
pastry shells, each wrapped in colored
cellophane. I didn’t recognize the vendors’
tags on any of the shirts, but the girls
think they are cute, especially embellished
with rhinestones. I smelled a whiff of travel
as I undid the plastic and lifted wads of
crumpled newsprint, padding, from inside: just
for a moment, that other place and its crowded
streets, old houses leaning at the curb or
limned with tungsten light— mingled scents
of tobacco, wilted greens, old linen somehow
sharper and more crisp, because of evanescence.

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

Yesterday, you asked how long
till seven o’clock and now the hour
has not only arrived but is past,

the way all things crest their apex
and turn away, gradually or of
a sudden— the way summer’s

languid gold has darkened
to sepia and all the little birds
with wingtips shaped like knives

have thrown themselves against
the sky’s steel vault. Nothing
to do when bitter cold

plucks you raw from sleep
at dawn, but fumble for a cup
of coffee, the first sip

searing as the kiss you
did not want to give
but that I demanded:

and soon, all that
cold sugar falling
through the air—

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

If coffee has no effect, neither has milk or tea.
Dense fog curls outside the window, mimicking sleep.

In childhood, recurring dreams of flight across
billowing sheets of white, harbors of sleep.

In the early hours, your footfalls down
the hall rouse me from watchful sleep.

My bed is lumpy with hidden vegetables,
the mattress striped with wires: elusive sleep.

Wild silences of deep solitude, trapdoors
amid the roots: for tumbling headlong into sleep.

I once had a rusted key to a garden where
arms carved me makeshift rooms for sleep.

The tremor starts along the foot, a fright
like falling into the sudden depth preceding sleep.

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

Across the street, the neighbor pokes
through piles of furniture left on
the sidewalk, hoping to rescue

a vintage lamp, a serviceable side
table, a stool whose rungs might be
replaced. It’s early yet in the day,

the truck from Samaritan House
not yet there for pickup; expected
rain still a couple of hours away.

At church, in the Commons; at the down-
town thrift shop; or behind the high
school, a row of oversized bins

where we bring castoffs from time
to time, for donation or recycling;
winter coats the children have

outgrown, small kitchen appliances
and tchotchkes taking up too
much room— so many times I’ve felt

the urge to evict such senseless
excess from my life. Things multiply
in the dark; enjoy it now, you can’t

take it with you; or, out with the old
before in with the new— home-grown
platitudes for making room and yet more

room for stuff. I think of Basho on
the road with his notebook and traveling
cloak, of ascetics spending their days

in meditation under a tree. Oh habit
and earthly desire, what purchase we
still hold on this worldly life—

Stubborn to the end, enamored by
the promise of the beautiful, we cling
to every surface assuring love that lasts.

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

I am looking for the little cathedral
window Neruda found in a slice of lemon,

for the cascade of rain that rice
grains make inside a hollow reed;

I am searching in the wild rose bushes
for the tiny hearts of deepest red

the birds return to again and again;
for the five-pointed star exploding

seeds in the apple’s creamy interior. Warm-
wet or windy: but I want to remember

the day’s pallor is merely one scene
in the stack of cards dealt by that

unseen fist: deceptive green, curled leaf
caught too in the first blush of death.

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.