Via Negativa

February 22, 2026 by Dave Bonta

Aversion

Up and to the office, where Sir J. Minnes (most of the rest being at the Parliament-house), all the morning answering petitions and other business. Towards noon there comes a man in as if upon ordinary business, and shows me a writ from the Exchequer, called a Commission of Rebellion, and tells me that I am his prisoner in Field’s business; which methought did strike me to the heart, to think that we could not sit in the middle of the King’s business. I told him how and where we were employed, and bid him have a care; and perceiving that we were busy, he said he would, and did withdraw for an hour: in which time Sir J. Minnes took coach and to Court, to see what he could do from thence; and our solicitor against Field came by chance and told me that he would go and satisfy the fees of the Court, and would end the business. So he went away about that, and I staid in my closett, till by and by the man and four more of his fellows came to know what I would do; I told them stay till I heard from the King or my Lord Chief Baron, to both whom I had now sent. With that they consulted, and told me that if I would promise to stay in the house they would go and refresh themselves, and come again, and know what answer I had: so they away, and I home to dinner, whither by chance comes Mr. Hawley and dined with me.
Before I had dined, the bayleys come back again with the constable, and at the office knock for me, but found me not there; and I hearing in what manner they were come, did forbear letting them know where I was; so they stood knocking and enquiring for me.
By and by at my parler-window comes Sir W. Batten’s Mungo, to tell me that his master and lady would have me come to their house through Sir J. Minnes’s lodgings, which I could not do; but, however, by ladders, did get over the pale between our yards, and so to their house, where I found them (as they have reason) to be much concerned for me, my lady especially.
The fellows staid in the yard swearing with one or two constables, and some time we locked them into the yard, and by and by let them out again, and so kept them all the afternoon, not letting them see me, or know where I was. One time I went up to the top of Sir W. Batten’s house, and out of one of their windows spoke to my wife out of one of ours; which methought, though I did it in mirth, yet I was sad to think what a sad thing it would be for me to be really in that condition. By and by comes Sir J. Minnes, who (like himself and all that he do) tells us that he can do no good, but that my Lord Chancellor wonders that we did not cause the seamen to fall about their ears: which we wished we could have done without our being seen in it; and Captain Grove being there, he did give them some affront, and would have got some seamen to have drubbed them, but he had not time, nor did we think it fit to have done it, they having executed their commission; but there was occasion given that he did draw upon one of them and he did complain that Grove had pricked him in the breast, but no hurt done; but I see that Grove would have done our business to them if we had bid him. By and by comes Mr. Clerke, our solicitor, who brings us a release from our adverse atturney, we paying the fees of the commission, which comes to five marks, and pay the charges of these fellows, which are called the commissioners, but are the most rake-shamed rogues that ever I saw in my life; so he showed them this release, and they seemed satisfied, and went away with him to their atturney to be paid by him. But before they went, Sir W. Batten and my lady did begin to taunt them, but the rogues answered them as high as themselves, and swore they would come again, and called me rogue and rebel, and they would bring the sheriff and untile his house, before he should harbour a rebel in his house, and that they would be here again shortly.
Well, at last they went away, and I by advice took occasion to go abroad, and walked through the street to show myself among the neighbours, that they might not think worse than the business is. Being met by Captn. Taylor and Bowry, whose ship we have hired for Tangier, they walked along with me to Cornhill talking about their business, and after some difference about their prices we agreed, and so they would have me to a tavern, and there I drank one glass of wine and discoursed of something about freight of a ship that may bring me a little money, and so broke up, and I home to Sir W. Batten’s again, where Sir J. Lawson, Captain Allen, Spragg, and several others, and all our discourse about the disgrace done to our office to be liable to this trouble, which we must get removed.
Hither comes Mr. Clerke by and by, and tells me that he hath paid the fees of the Court for the commission; but the men are not contented with under 5l. for their charges, which he will not give them, and therefore advises me not to stir abroad till Monday that he comes or sends to me again, whereby I shall not be able to go to White Hall to the Duke of York, as I ought.
Here I staid vexing, and yet pleased to see every body, man and woman, my Lady and Mrs. Turner especially, for me, till 10 at night; and so home, where my people are mightily surprized to see this business, but it troubles me not very much, it being nothing touching my particular person or estate.
Being in talk to-day with Sir W. Batten he tells me that little is done yet in the Parliament-house, but only this day it was moved and ordered that all the members of the House do subscribe to the renouncing of the Covenant, which is thought will try some of them.
There is also a bill brought in for the wearing of nothing but cloth or stuffs of our own manufacture, and is likely to be passed.
Among other talk this evening, my lady did speak concerning Commissioner Pett’s calling the present King bastard, and other high words heretofore; and Sir W. Batten did tell us, that he did give the Duke or Mr. Coventry an account of that and other like matters in writing under oath, of which I was ashamed, and for which I was sorry, but I see there is an absolute hatred never to be altered there, and Sir J. Minnes, the old coxcomb, has got it by the end, which troubles me for the sake of the King’s service, though I do truly hate the expressions laid to him. To my office and set down this day’s journall, and so home with my mind out of order, though not very sad with it, but ashamed for myself something, and for the honour of the office much more. So home and to bed.

an ordinary prison
in the middle of a field

we promise to stay away
hearing nowhere

the wind comes over
the pale between our yards

we lock up the windows
think what a sad thing

become like the ears
of an attorney that turn
themselves off

oh my people
nothing touching us
but the nothing of our own

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 21 February 1662/63.

February 22, 2026February 22, 2026 by Luisa A. Igloria

Migrant Route

river in November light between bare woods and mountain


He said his aunt went missing 
last week; she'd managed to slip
out of the house when her husband
was at work, and wandered the streets
of their North Carolina town until she 
was found nearly at dusk. She went
past houses with fences, houses with 
boxwood hedges, the hardware store 
and the shoe repair shop at the corner; 
the elementary school playground with  
swings and bright climbing equipment,
the trains carrying coal rumbling 
along the tracks at the edge of town. 
Farther and farther, not knowing south 
or east or west. Her thin housecoat 
must have fluttered in the still-cold 
February air, its flaps like endpapers 
of a well-thumbed atlas, each map in it 
pointing to the only destination she knew.
When the police found her and gently asked
where she was going, why of course didn't 
they know, she was walking home to Guyana? 
Isn't it something— how even when the mind 
is drifting deeper into a fog, the heart 
remembers a place as surely as the day 
it first pushed off from that warmer shore.

February 21, 2026February 21, 2026 by Luisa A. Igloria

Blue Pilot Light

Catastrophe, always the biggest headline
in the larger world: oil spills, glaciers 
calving, an avalanche slamming into a train.
In the Outer Banks, houses on stilts fall 
into the ocean as waves roll their refrain of 
Doomsday, doomsday. Meanwhile, the earth
softens for spring, and dandelions prepare 
insurgency campaigns. I text our handyman 
Mark to see if he can help me scrape
the peeling paint off window frames, 
caulk the gaps between seams. Small 
things like that, we can fix. But I'm
unprepared for all the ways the hours
careen in different directions. What 
was yesterday is already tomorrow.
Almost daily, the mail brings a flurry 
of invitations to a buffet culminating 
in the final, inevitable event: retirement 
and long-term plans, Medicare, menus for all 
kinds of funeral arrangements. I worry about
my children, themselves trying to clear a path 
through this hard and unforgiving life despite 
strong résumés, long work hours. Yesterday, 
one of them texted me from an automotive shop. 
When the manager quietly told her he would change 
all four of her tires for the price of one because 
he has daughters and knows how difficult it is 
for them in the world today, she burst into hot, 
grateful tears there, in the midst of air 
compressors, exhaust fumes, engine hoists. 
With her, I want to remember and marvel at 
such strange tenderness: how unobtrusively 
it manifests in this life, like the oven's tiny 
blue flame that means the burner is clean and 
there's enough supply of gas for adequate heat.

February 20, 2026 by Dave Bonta

McBoatface

Up and by water with Commissioner Pett to Deptford, and there looked over the yard, and had a call, wherein I am very highly pleased with our new manner of call-books, being my invention. Thence thinking to have gone down to Woolwich in the Charles pleasure boat, but she run aground, it being almost low water, and so by oars to the town, and there dined, and then to the yard at Mr. Ackworth’s, discoursing with the officers of the yard about their stores of masts, which was our chief business, and having done something therein, took boat and to the pleasure boat, which was come down to fetch us back, and I could have been sick if I would in going, the wind being very fresh, but very pleasant it was, and the first time I have sailed in any one of them. It carried us to Cuckold’s Point, and so by oars to the Temple, it raining hard, where missed speaking with my cosen Roger, and so walked home and to my office; there spent the night till bed time, and so home to supper and to bed.

high in the pleasure boat
run aground
without pleasure

I come down to
the wind in the sail
one of them is speaking

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 20 February 1662/63.

February 20, 2026February 19, 2026 by Luisa A. Igloria

Strike Anywhere Match

Eighteen pairs of eyes fix on me,
or on anything in the general direction 

of the front of the classroom. No one  
actually yawns, though their faces look 

like yawning. Outside, the rain is barely  
leaving pencil marks on the roof. Here,

it's mostly silent. Today the story is 
about a pig in a lab, whose organs 

are being genetically engineered 
for eventual transplant to victims of 

a plague. What does the world look like 
if one believes in the superiority of 

humans to other species? What use-
fulness does sacrifice have in the world? 

The students look at me as if I'm the lab 
animal in the crate, and they're the scientists 

circling the room with clipboards and pens. 
I dearly want to know: what will it take 

to kindle a fire, get them to care 
about stories and poems, warm up 

to metaphor and meaning? Toward the end 
of the session, they shut their tablets 

and zip backpacks close, heave out of their 
seats and walk out of the room— expressions 

mostly unchanged as I erase the board, return 
the matchstick to its box marked "strike anywhere."

February 19, 2026 by Dave Bonta

Ward

Up and to my office, where abundance of business all the morning. Dined by my wife’s bedside, she not being yet well. We fell out almost upon my discourse of delaying the having of Ashwell, where my wife believing that I have a mind to have Pall, which I have not, though I could wish she did deserve to be had. So to my office, where by and by we sat, this afternoon being the first we have met upon a great while, our times being changed because of the parliament sitting. Being rose, I to my office till twelve at night, drawing out copies of the overcharge of the Navy, one to send to Mr. Coventry early to-morrow. So home and to bed, being weary, sleepy, and my eyes begin to fail me, looking so long by candlelight upon white paper.
This day I read the King’s speech to the Parliament yesterday; which is very short, and not very obliging; but only telling them his desire to have a power of indulging tender consciences, not that he will yield to have any mixture in the uniformity of the Church’s discipline; and says the same for the Papists, but declares against their ever being admitted to have any offices or places of trust in the kingdom; but, God knows, too many have.

where morning fell
almost as a pall
over the bed

my eyes fail
looking so long
upon white uniformity

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 19 February 1662/63.

February 19, 2026February 18, 2026 by Luisa A. Igloria

Fine Thank You and How Was Your Day?

We were joking about shadow bodies, doppelgängers, 
our bodies that don't quite feel awake until they 
have washed their faces and drank at least a cup 
of strong dark coffee. My doppelgänger ordered 
a coffee that the student barista made behind 
the counter, but with nondairy milk because of 
lactose intolerance and because though I love 
coffee, too much sometimes trips up the acidity 
in my stomach. Yet I drink it all day long, I 
nurse my one cup of coffee and make it last, or 
my shadow self will make myself another cup at home 
later in the evening because oh god she just loves 
the smell of coffee. I've been thinking of the body 
as a kind of garden, luxuriant with texture and
scent, dotted with underground caves where fireflies
sequin the water. Not that garden in the first story  
of exile where a snake in the grass wasn't there 
to play but brought a non-multiple choice test and 
a loaded answer key. My body doesn't feel like its 
core is merely a leftover rib or an afterthought. 
So many mornings my body might feel like a mess 
of limbs and thinning hair, callused heels, creaking
knees. But I would rather be a constellation of lights
winking at the edge of the ceiling, festive beyond
the holidays— wouldn't you? In the Bolivian restaurant 
where the tamales are warm and the sauce is creamy 
with a hint of heat, my body sinks into the orange 
bucket seat and feels short as a child, but it knows 
it couldn't wait to get out of the office. Someone makes 
a joke or a pun. Can't even remember how exactly it went 
now— divot, diva, treble, trouble?— but enough to produce 
a grand cackle. Funny how little plates of food and a little 
drink of something nice with friends is so restorative, even 
in this little city by the coast where sometimes it snows 
but mostly it floods and likely you'd have to travel 
somewhere to ski down the bright, powdered sides 
of mountains and breathe in the cold, lacerating 
air that says Do you feel that, do your lungs and 
the rest of you remember when last you felt so alive?

February 18, 2026February 18, 2026 by Luisa A. Igloria

Self-Portrait as Late Bloomer with Nudibranch

No, that isn't a piece of frilly green
      lettuce in the aquarium but a slug
which stores chloroplasts from the algae
      it feeds on. Its cells continue to photo-
synthesize light energy, so it's no longer 
      just the dull color of putty but suddenly
the most fabulous creature in the room. 
      I was never that kind of head-turner, 
only the girl sitting in the back 
      of the room, the one with the sensible 
shoes and the sensible clothes made by 
      her mother, never bought off the rack 
from some department store. One year
      in high school, the trend was apple
clogs and Faded Glory jeans— the ones
      with the tiny buckle below the rear 
waistband. I tried to take notes on color
      combinations, accessories, the difference 
between trying too hard and effortless. I guess
      some of us are just late bloomers. There are 
reports of rainbow slugs showing up in rock pools 
      across Britain, little clumps of gummy confetti
bright against rock: audacious carnival of wild 
      color, though their presence means waters 
are warming up even more from climate change.

February 18, 2026 by Dave Bonta

Firm

Up, leaving my wife sick as last night in bed. I to my office all the morning, casting up with Captain Cocke their accounts of 500 tons of hemp brought from Riga, and bought by him and partners upon account, wherein are many things worth my knowledge. So at noon to dinner, taking Mr. Hater with me because of losing them, and in the afternoon he and I alone at the office, finishing our account of the extra charge of the Navy, not properly belonging to the Navy, since the King’s coming in to Christmas last; and all extra things being abated, I find that the true charge of the Navy to that time hath been after the rate of 374,743l. a-year. I made an end by eleven o’clock at night, and so home to bed almost weary.
This day the Parliament met again, after their long prorogation; but I know not any thing what they have done, being within doors all day.

a cast of partners to hate
losing the afternoon

the office not properly
belonging to time

after what they have done
indoors all day

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Wednesday 18 February 1662/63.

February 18, 2026 by Dave Bonta

Water ways

Up and to my office, and there we sat all the morning, and at noon my wife being gone to Chelsey with her brother and sister and Mrs. Lodum, to see the wassell at the school, where Mary Ashwell is, I took home Mr. Pett and he dined with me all alone, and much discourse we had upon the business of the office, and so after dinner broke up and with much ado, it raining hard, which it has not done a great while now, but only frost a great while, I got a coach and so to the Temple, where discoursed with Mr. W. Montagu about borrowing some money for my Lord, and so by water (where I have not been a good while through cold) to Westminster to Sir W. Wheeler’s, whom I found busy at his own house with the Commissioners of Sewers, but I spoke to him about my Lord’s business of borrowing money, and so to my Lord of Sandwich, to give him an account of all, whom I found at cards with Pickering; but he made an end soon: and so all alone, he and I, after I had given him an account, he told me he had a great secret to tell me, such as no flesh knew but himself, nor ought; which was this: that yesterday morning Eschar, Mr. Edward Montagu’s man, did come to him from his master with some of the Clerks of the Exchequer, for my Lord to sign to their books for the Embassy money; which my Lord very civilly desired not to do till he had spoke with his master himself. In the afternoon, my Lord and my Lady Wright being at cards in his chamber, in comes Mr. Montagu; and desiring to speak with my Lord at the window in his chamber, he begun to charge my Lord with the greatest ingratitude in the world: that he that had received his earldom, garter, 4000l. per annum, and whatever he is in the world, from him, should now study him all the dishonour that he could; and so fell to tell my Lord, that if he should speak all that he knew of him, he could do so and so. In a word, he did rip up all that could be said that was unworthy, and in the basest terms they could be spoken in. To which my Lord answered with great temper, justifying himself, but endeavouring to lessen his heat, which was a strange temper in him, knowing that he did owe all he hath in the world to my Lord, and that he is now all that he is by his means and favour. But my Lord did forbear to increase the quarrel, knowing that it would be to no good purpose for the world to see a difference in the family; but did allay him so as that he fell to weeping. And after much talk (among other things Mr. Montagu telling him that there was a fellow in the town, naming me, that had done ill offices, and that if he knew it to be so, he would have him cudgelled) my Lord did promise him that, if upon account he saw that there was not many tradesmen unpaid, he would sign the books; but if there was, he could not bear with taking too great a debt upon him. So this day he sent him an account, and a letter assuring him there was not above 200l. unpaid; and so my Lord did sign to the Exchequer books. Upon the whole, I understand fully what a rogue he is, and how my Lord do think and will think of him for the future; telling me that thus he has served his father my Lord Manchester, and his whole family, and now himself: and which is worst, that he hath abused, and in speeches every day do abuse, my Lord Chancellor, whose favour he hath lost; and hath no friend but Sir H. Bennet, and that (I knowing the rise of the friendship) only from the likeness of their pleasures, and acquaintance, and concernments, they have in the same matters of lust and baseness; for which, God forgive them! But he do flatter himself, from promises of Sir H. Bennet, that he shall have a pension of 2000l. per annum, and be made an Earl. My Lord told me he expected a challenge from him, but told me there was no great fear of him, for there was no man lies under such an imputation as he do in the business of Mr. Cholmely, who, though a simple sorry fellow, do brave him and struts before him with the Queen, to the sport and observation of the whole Court.
He did keep my Lord at the window, thus reviling and braving him above an hour, my Lady Wright being by; but my Lord tells me she could not hear every word, but did well know what their discourse was; she could hear enough to know that. So that he commands me to keep it as the greatest secret in the world, and bids me beware of speaking words against Mr. Montagu, for fear I should suffer by his passion thereby.
After he had told me this I took coach and home, where I found my wife come home and in bed with her sister in law in the chamber with her, she not being able to stay to see the wassel, being so ill of her termes, which I was sorry for. Hither we sent for her sister’s viall, upon which she plays pretty well for a girl, but my expectation is much deceived in her, not only for that, but in her spirit, she being I perceive a very subtle witty jade, and one that will give her husband trouble enough as little as she is, whereas I took her heretofore for a very child and a simple fool. I played also, which I have not done this long time before upon any instrument, and at last broke up and I to my office a little while, being fearful of being too much taken with musique, for fear of returning to my old dotage thereon, and so neglect my business as I used to do.
Then home and to bed.
Coming home I brought Mr. Pickering as far as the Temple, who tells me the story is very true of a child being dropped at the ball at Court; and that the King had it in his closett a week after, and did dissect it; and making great sport of it, said that in his opinion it must have been a month and three hours old; and that, whatever others think, he hath the greatest loss (it being a boy, as he says), that hath lost a subject by the business.
He tells me, too, that the other story, of my Lady Castlemaine’s and Stuart’s marriage, is certain, and that it was in order to the King’s coming to Stuart, as is believed generally. He tells me that Sir H. Bennet is a Catholique, and how all the Court almost is changed to the worse since his coming in, they being afeard of him. And that the Queen-Mother’s Court is now the greatest of all; and that our own Queen hath little or no company come to her, which I know also to be very true, and am sorry to see it.

rain through the sewers
a secret flesh of the world

whatever word it means
weeping under us

like the same matter as God
no simple wind

but enough to suffer passion
enough to play

on this dropped ball
that we dissect

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Tuesday 17 February 1662/63.