Luisa Igloria
What makes me laugh is the pleasure of the unexpected, the rakish charm of the unpredictable, the usual story twisted into a mobius shape: two left shoes I take home in a box from the store instead of a pair, the sleeve that's shorter than the other; the mismatched sock, the curl in the hairpin-turned-critter, the profound-sounding wisdom a child mouths without even trying. It is spontaneous, hilarious invention-- like the time my mother, desperate for a bonnet to keep warm during intensely cold nights (in my childhood home in the Philippines, there was no such thing as insulation), pulled clean underwear from the drawer and wore it on her head all night and at breakfast with aplomb. When I was around two, the women in my family working quietly in one room on some sewing, realized belatedly that a large button had rolled off someone's lap and out into the balcony where I sat playing. They did not see that the button had sailed down to the ground; they said they only saw on my face a smile like that of the seamstress's cat that had licked the cream... or swallowed a little disc of plastic. Some high-pitched screaming ensued, which brought neighbors running with pails of water, since they thought there was a fire. Eventually the poor button was found; the baby was burped for good measure anyway, and all was well. So sometimes, humor is what results from the collision of stubborn nature and the obvious (which doesn't always seem so), after which it is with great relief we can come back to ourselves, glad that we are none the worse for wear.
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The Gods Must Be Crazy
…we’re apt to turn the unforgiving points upon ourselves.
~ Leslie Adrienne Miller
A friend calls slingbacks the convertible of shoes,
while another swears stilettos and a vampy toe
can lend the illusion of length to any kind of calf.
My mother kept a closet full of them—no ballerina
flats for her, no ugly garden clogs of wood or rubber foam,
no white gym shoes to (mis)coordinate with ankle socks
worn over pantyhose. At seventy, for the American
Legion parade, bunions notwithstanding, she walked
three miles of Missouri pavement in summer heat,
in slides with three-inch heels to match
her yellow dress. The legend I once saw
scripted on a birthday card
might well have been meant for her:
Let us be elegant, or die. I admit there is
a certain type of elegance to pricey
instruments of torture— for height
and style, even men wore them centuries ago
with formal outfits of ruffled shirts and velvet,
took mincing steps like Chinese brides
whose toe joints were bent back and taped
then stuffed in “lotus shoes”.
And there’s the dagger, also called stiletto,
favored in medieval times by assassins who could slip
its slim and fatal length through gaps in armor
then disappear, streaking across the market square
and overturning wagons. Assassins choose, I’m sure,
another type of footwear. As for me,
I’ve bought and tossed and bought my share—
graduating from patent leather Mary Janes
to college Birkenstocks and Wallabees
then espadrilles with ribbon ties to match.
Now I wear mostly boots and the occasional
kitten heel, low-stacked but with a little curve
that mimics a flyaway curl of hair. Still,
there’s something about the smell of leather,
the feel of skin gloved by another skin,
the promise twinkled by a rhinestone seam
receding down a hallway… Confess, which would
you rather be? —the woman in the video who wears
Manolo Blahniks beneath the sheets in bed, or the bushman
clutching a Coke bottle to his chest, loping barefoot
through the Kalahari, trying to return to the crazy gods
this odd gift that must have dropped out of the sky.
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Luisa A. Igloria (previously published as Maria Luisa Aguilar Cariño) is a poet and Associate Professor in the MFA Creative Writing Program at Old Dominion University. She is the author of Juan Luna's Revolver (2009 Ernest Sandeen Prize in Poetry, University of Notre Dame Press), Trill & Mordent (WordTech Editions), and 8 other books. Her work has appeared in Poetry East, Poetry Salzburg Review (Austria), Shearsman (UK), Prism International (Canada), Smartish Pace, Crab Orchard Review, and Poetry, among others. Originally from Baguio City in the Philippines, she received the 2007 49th Parallel Prize in Poetry (Bellingham Review), the 2007 James Hearst Poetry Prize (selected by former US Poet Laureate Ted Kooser for the North American Review), and the 2006 National Writers Union Poetry Prize (selected by Adrienne Rich). www.luisaigloria.com