Luisa A. Igloria was born in the Philippines and received a PhD in creative writing from the University of Illinois. The author of ten poetry collections, she received the 2009 Ernest Sandeen Prize for Juan Luna’s Revolver. She was chosen by Ted Kooser as the recipient of the 2007 James Hearst Poetry Prize and by Adrienne Rich for the 2006 National Writers Union Poetry Prize, and she was a finalist in Narrative’s First Annual Poetry Contest. Igloria directs the MFA Creative Writing Program at Old Dominion University, Virginia.

On the Difficulty of Discerning Shapes in the Distance

by Luisa A. Igloria

Little oases of language, assurances to console
        the living: how the shell of the once familiar body
                (dissolved in rain, into the sod),

is yet alive somewhere. Above the scrim of trees,
        beyond our frugal line of sight. It goes on living,
                the minister says, just as we
People on couch
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