Dawn igloria biography

Here is my passport, my bill of lading, my one-
way ticket, my nowhere fare, my stub you’ve stamped

to certify. All night I clean the lint
from rusted laundromat machines. All night

I mop and polish schoolroom floors. All summer
while you go off to Florida or France, I tend

your mother’s bones, empty her bedpan, feed her baby
food as she babbles in the granny bin. My fingers

have pulled bodies of bitter melon from the vine
and splayed them open on the chopping board.

Come sit and eat with me sometime— I’ll make
a meal from seeds and pith, a sustenance of green

and verve plucked raw from my own nerve. I steel
myself, passing through each turnstile, bending

through each furrow, threading the factory needle back
and back into a hundred collars and sleeves— Eyes

that sweepingly appraise the education in my hands,
the dusky sheen of my corn, the perfume of my salt

and pickled shrimp, the bile I drop
into the soup to make me strong.

In response to Via Negativa: Trader.

Luisa A. Igloria

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What I Don't Tell My Children about My Hometown

[after Kristin Naca]

I don't tell lies. Memory's more
elusive than truth. So I say,
the trees in the backyard rained avocados,
and the scent of ginger flowers
could make you tipsy. And it's true.
Rain water collected in tin drums.
Bath water heated in an old kettle
on a stove lit by gas-blue flames. As a child,
I lay down for naps in the laundry room
and woke to my uncle’s hand
digging under the sheets. The windows
had grilles; they scrolled shut as secrets.
A tapestry of St. Cecilia hung
above the piano, her eyes averted
to the ceiling. How to unlearn
the silence of those eaves?
For years the elders thought I
was the lucky one, the child
unsprung from heaven. Mine
was the hand that plucked
fish bones from the throats of guests,
choking at the table. Which
of mother’s friends walked one day
into the surf? Nightly I comb my hair
for cartilage. The stories don’t end but we
snap off the ends that jangle.
To this day I cannot call him uncle.
To this day when someon