Tag: Luisa A. Igloria

The first time I take
my then youngest child
with me on a trip is also
the first time I’m not
traveling abroad alone.
It’s hard to manage two
carry-on wheelies &
a kindergartener who’s never
been on an escalator. Step.
Yes, step. Quickly before
the next one swallows
the one before it. This is
before the days of complicated
TSA checks & we’re still
on local soil so an airport
orderly helps. I buy a bag
of peanut butter cookies
& a bottle of water.
We wait to board the plane.
My child is restless and skips
from one window to another,
humming under her breath.
There are foreigners of course:
in Hawaiian shirts, smelling
like suntan lotion, probably
back from Boracay or Cebu. One
of them, a white man, stoops
to talk to her, then folds
a ten dollar bill into a square
then tucks it swiftly into
the pocket of her sweater. He’s
nondescript: khakis, knit polo,
a little grey around the temples.
She’s six; pert, unafraid, makes
eye contact. He turns to me
without preamble, says he’s back
from the province where he’s gone
to meet the family of his lady
friend. He looked up a bureau,
got access to their catalogs
& this way found a nice girl
he’ll marry & take back
to a little town just outside
of Michigan. He says: by the way,
I gave her a little something
to keep safe for me until
next time. I gather up my child,
our things, as thankfully
the doors open for boarding.

Do you save it, or do you
spend it; and do you spend it
all, or do you save some
for an indeterminate time
in a future you’re no longer
sure you’ll get to. Do you eat
the sugar, or do you practice
abstinence; do you wait
with extra patience or do you
sprint the final mile until
you drop just before the thin
ribbon marking the finish line;
do you take the silver candle-
sticks out of their wrapping
paper, the wedding plates,
the beaded coat. Do you have
any more time left, can you
plan a concert, write another
book, think of how you can
progress, do you finally want
to do the things you’ve always
wanted to do but didn’t.

Some planet is supposed to be
in retrograde this month – Venus,
or Mercury, or any of the others.
Whatever it is, supposedly is causing
all kinds of mechanical failures:
cars unable to start in the morning,
the HVAC unit breaking down just as
temperatures plummet. Lovers
breaking up, parents divorcing,
children turning against siblings
who never before this time had any
differences. Whatever it is, it’s
in full swing. Best to sit it out,
let it work off all its bad
juju. Don’t feed it any more
precious energy. Hide your tears
of frustration. Dig in your heels
and wait for the tide to turn.

It’s the end of October and here,
near the sea, the fig still purples
with fruit; and across the world
the cherry trees are putting forth
blossoms again, after their
season. I’m not sure if this
is what they call the second coming.
Meanwhile the days wind themselves
more rapidly and the spool darkens
with shadow. As a child I used
to take a dog-eared new testament
with me and under the blankets read
about the end of days: how seven
suns collide in scrolls of sulfur
and four horses paw at the edge
of the sky. Whether we eat our fill
from the plate or choose to fast,
jeweled glass rains from every
temple, every orchard. I didn’t
know then how there could be
so much sadness, so much waste.

During the last mandatory
evacuation, three of my neighbors
decided to stay. They had
generators. One said, I’ve lived
on this street more than thirty
years and nothing really bad
has ever happened. I cooked
all the chicken in my freezer
and gave them a giant tray
of adobo. They took it
to a hotel room they decided
to rent near the airport: more
inland, though in these parts
everything is really a flood zone.
My daughter and I flew to Chicago,
where we have family. It was hard
to believe the color of the sky
there, the bright, untroubled
coolness. The night before we left,
there were no bird or cricket sounds,
no chorus of frogs from the river.
I looked around, not knowing what
to take, only knowing we’d leave
most everything else. In the airport,
some people clutched duffel bags
stuffed with important papers,
photo albums, passports. Children
held soft toys or blankets,
or dogs in pet carriers.

~ after Jose Olivarez

Clouds of rice
and rivers of blood
stew; prim egg rolls
and noodles assigned
to purgatory. The real
stuff we used to hide
from neighbors and co-
workers out in the glorious
open— rows of butterflied
fish, those salty angels.
The pig and the goat
chasing each other around
the fire pit, an army
of uncles ready to come
down with justice. Women
combing the flesh of fish
with tender spiked combs.
No one in scrubs. No one
bent over a field or
in a maid’s uniform.

There was no will. They were superstitious like that. To name a thing is to conjure it into being. To spell it out in sections is to establish its jurisdiction and claim. Bank statements and medical records fell under the same category. And so I don’t know where to trace the erratic nature of my blood, my propensity for salt, my aversion to creases, the easy alarms set off beneath my skin. When the doctor describes my breasts as dense and lumpy like cold oatmeal and one hip as tilted like a ballast, I don’t know how to think of the future. Insurance is the belief that there is no crisis that can’t be averted by a steady will. We buy it in increments: monthly, a guarantee that the unforeseen won’t maim when it bites. That spring, when it returns, will be infinitely more interesting than last.

its sentience a work
prefabricated
in parts—

before it arrives
at a different
warehouse
consider

the marks
of certification it bears
and the circuitry used

to test its reflexes.
Recall a part
for further scrutiny
using the current

vocabulary of
standards. Turn it
and around

in a room then
assign it to work
anyway— its cost
cheaper almost

by half. Pigeon
or dove? Authenticate
me. How do I pass?

The older they get, the softer
the wooden palings that unfasten
more willingly away from the gird.
A nail loosens, no longer reticent
or wanting only to bury itself
in the body of a plank, obedient
to whatever pounded it into place.
Leaf by leaf things shed down
until there’s only blueprint,
skeleton, lines that web and blur
in the smudged dark, still groping
for what ripples out of sight.

Saturdays in the rented hall
the dance teachers show us
how to loop synthetic straw
for making hula skirts.
It’s the first time our new-
new bodies learn how joints
swivel, how the hip loosens
from its cage. A hand cups
the ear and the other pushes
away— meaning water, or
a voyage, or goodbye.
When the room fills with people
we don’t know whose eyes sweep
up and down and across our bodies,
who is it we’re waving to?