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  1. *Señas*

    *”…When you lose something,
    it’s so you can learn how to search.” ~ Dean Young*

    No sign of the spoon– and the fork and the knife
    on a string– that he lost as a child

    No sign of the furry brown bear– with the real
    glass eyes– that I took to bed at night

    No sign of the phoebes– they came to dip
    for water– that were here yesterday

    No sign of the robin– it rang and rang– that embroidered
    its banner with song then fell strangely silent

    No sign of the little stone buddha– and his necklace
    of rosy children– that cracked on the pavement
    when it fell from my pocket

    No sign– but blue scales on the kitchen floor–
    of the fish that jumped from the bowl by the open
    window, startled by the barking of the dog next door

    No sign of the moon– though I know it’s about to poke
    over the horizon– big like a woman with child

    No sign of the *cordillera*– though I glimpsed mountain-
    and-valley pleats tattooed under the poet’s collar

    No sign of the fog and its blue signature– I cannot see
    my own breath– curled beneath noon’s yellow shawl

    ~ Luisa A. Igloria
    03 19 2011


    1. A seña, then, is not a sign
      nor yet quite a signal;
      neither quite a gesture
      nor a code.

      There is more lost
      in flattening the tilde
      than the breasts of mourning,
      or the sehnsucht of heimweh:

      it is signed but not sealed
      set but not sent;
      silent, unseen — an
      unpictured scenery,

      an encipherment
      of zero.


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