Yo Yu

'Have fish'

~ Chinese saying

Today, the streets flooded and ceilings leaked,
mercurial. On TV, firemen waded through apartments

with small children in their arms. The lights
went out and we swam to bed

after having made a feast of every
frozen shape in the refrigerator.

The wind looked for something
under all the eaves. The neighbor's roof

flew into the trees. All night the rain
made loops of rope outside the window.

Lawnmowers and cars floated by.
Sometimes shoes, a nightstand, a red

hot-water bottle. Tomorrow
the sky could look like a field of helium.

There's a jar of salt in the kitchen,
limes, a tin of sardines.

Why should I line up my cares in a row
like die-cast toy soldiers

along the windowsill?
Luck is bright as a soap-bubble.

Luck is a river. Luck
is the fickle and ancient carp

a child could ride, his bright
silk pantaloons improbably rippling.

Originally from Baguio City in the Philippines, Luisa A. Igloria (previously published as Maria Luisa Aguilar-Cariño) is an Associate Professor in the MFA Creative Writing Program, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, Virginia. She is the author of Juan Luna's Revolver (2009 Ernest Sandeen Poetry Prize, University of Notre Dame) and 9 other books. Work has appeared in numerous anthologies and journals including Language for a New Century, ed. Tina Chang, Ravi Shankar, and Nathalie Handal (W.W. Norton, 2008); in Poetry, Crab Orchard Review, Natural Bridge, The Missouri Review, Indiana Review, Poetry East, Smartish Pace, Rattle, The North American Review, Bellingham Review, Shearsman (UK), and PRISM International (Canada). Her website is at www.luisaigloria.com.