Series: Morning Porch Poems: Autumn 2011

At first light, the mother with the bones grown brittle as a sparrow’s gets up to wash her face in the ancient sink. The ceilings are still damp from the last hurricane when the roof leaked in more places than she had pails for. On the wall, faint prints of mold shaped like whorls of ears— they listen as she prays aloud or talks to her husband who left this world more than a decade ago. Far away, farther than the sights of a bird perched on some craggy roost, I follow her every move in the falling-down house: my lips touching the rim of her coffee cup, my fingers opening and closing on the shapes of bread and cheese and fruit I want to heap upon her plate; the rings of silver and gold and pearl I want to slide back, lovingly, upon those thin, arthritic fingers which once sewed every seam of my world neatly into place.

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

banded muscle that’s caused this hammering in my chest and ears and brain, of course like all the neighbors I’m a nervous wreck but thankful for your still apparently rapid reflexes. Having gone upstairs to brush my teeth and get ready for bed, at first I didn’t hear it clearly, the sudden pounding on the door at nearly midnight, then louder, the sounds of screaming— woman? man?— on the walk outside, followed by flashing lights and the voices of cops yelling Put your hands up! Put your hands up! Now it’s all over the late night news— Foot patrols leading big dogs to sniff around in the bushes and in the mews, even a helicopter buzzing overhead, lights sweeping in arcs like wipers across a dark windshield. Reports are mixed— Drug bust, car chase; one caught, one still on the loose; or all of them now in jail. Your wild agitation diminishes, but never really the fear; and the sorrow as well for a world where no one opens windows to let in the night air anymore.

—Luisa A. Igloria
10 23 2011

In response to an entry from The Morning Porch.

The bits of broken plastic, a cellphone part, a crumpled bill:
evidence left in haste or panic on the sidewalk.

The neighbors peering out from behind their blinds.

The voice on the phone asking,
Shouldn’t you be telling this to the police?

The caller responding, I thought you were the police?

The flutter of a newspaper someone left on a bench;
the dogs sniffing under the bushes.

Crackle of radio static, news flash on who was caught—

including a twelve year old. The afternoon’s cheek
suddenly, intensely, desiring sleep.

Three croaks from overhead: ravens or crows?

—Luisa A. Igloria
10 24 2011

In response to an entry from The Morning Porch.

The motet is a musical piece for several voices, where independent melodies may be seen to alternate with contrapuntal passages; dating from the 13th century, its name derives from the Latin movere, (“to move”), especially in its description of the movement of different voices against each other; or from a Latinized version of the Old French mot, “word” or “verbal utterance.”    

The year dwindles down in earnest, the swirl of
many voices decanting heat and timbre:
notes that move, fevered brass to diminuendo.

We hear them beating against the sky’s clear blue,
dark flecks like carets, bent to their patterned flight.
They’ll find their way to some other page, where wind

combines with other kinds of weather. Don’t rue
too deeply their disappearance; nor the fickle
hue of things steeped in the sun— that russet fruit

whose cheek has turned to blue; that gold persimmon,
its bitter juices puckering on your tongue.

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

What of the milk they nuzzled at birth,
and prior to that, what of water and blood?

What of the debris-spattered windshield,
the tunnel wide enough for only one?

What of the minerals gummed with salt and mud,
nourishing dark mixed of earth and flint?

What of the aster and the amaranth, then tiny buds
of forget-me-nots stripped from the field?

What of the year’s deepening light pooled in
the eyelids, a glaze the shade of pomegranates?

And what of the flanks of animals stepping through winter
wheat; then shadows of antlers crossed with the honeylocust’s?

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.

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.

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.

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.