A Reparation
There were some things I often had no
words or explanations for till after the fact
of their experiencing. For instance,
learning forms of the passive-aggressive:
that kind of maneuvering which rendered me
at once cold and hot, which made me second-
guess if not outright believe I must
have been the one at fault, said or done
the wrong thing, not known enough
to hold my place or keep the peace—
which meant, not raised a voice to demur,
to contradict, to question whatever
verdict or decision. How else explain the cold
shoulder, the silent disregard of conciliatory
gestures? Reading a tract on transcendental
meditation, I came upon this principle:
Do not oppose a great force; retreat
until it weakens, then advance
with resolution—something I took
as reassurance about the natural wisdom
of things; how, given time, their
logic would surface to defeat
all counterfeit versions of the truth.
And so it was, it nothing else, stunning
to find that he interpreted the same
in terms of a kind of extremism: he
was the great force never to be
opposed, especially when he'd flown
into one of his rages. Among the choice
parables held up during such times:
how he did not like the way
a former girlfriend dressed (too
provocative for his taste) and so
he followed her to the pool hall where
she'd gone to play a round with friends;
and without preamble, stripped her
of her V-neck blouse, neck to waist.
Even now I feel the slap of more than cold air.
I'm surprised I can bring myself to write
of this for the first time, in retrospect—
Perhaps it is the intervening years,
the gifts of age and distance, the need
to give at last an audience to all the sad
wraiths that lay and festered, airless and
unloved, in the dank basement of the mind.
Luisa A. Igloria, "A Reparation" from Maps for Migrants and Ghosts. Copyright © 2020 by Luisa A. Igloria. Reprinted by permission of Luisa A. Igloria.
Source:
Maps for Migrants and Ghosts
(Southern Illinois University Press, 2020)
