Two-Step for the Anthropocene

By Luisa A. Igloria on August 28, 2024

At least a step ahead, or two: forward waltz,
blundering with care through abysmally 

constricted passages, the whole complex
design of our mortal lives here below.

Every Eden you knew was mere leitmotiv,
flawed by your wanting. Heat rose from the bayou,

grass receded as the earth cracked. Imagine what
heartland remains after all turns aqueous,

impossible to return to unscathed. Every river
joining the large, vascular whole, every bulwark

kneeling in mud. Once, you knew sweetsop, 
loquat, starfruit and where they grew; the indigo

moons of berries, cells blurring into lumen.
Now you note where chainsaws bit into velum,

oil seeped into bodies to make them weep. Will
pearls weep again into the heart of a mollusk,

quiver iridescent in the depths? A knife shaped like a J
releases the lip from its lock—reverse origami. 

Silence pleats mountains and valleys, where feverish
tectonics many times leveled and wrung, 

undoing what you knew of built histories. Grief
verges on every stone in the quarry, every visible

weave in the lattice. Wilderness was once world
extracted of seemingly every remaining oneiric.

Yet you harbor hope for some underlayer, some crumb
zested with traces not only of omega but also of alpha..