Notes Toward a History of Coaxial Cable
dates back to the early 1880s, that heady time
of invention when sound and light and other
elements were yoked to service for precise
transmission of our varied signals— So much
that now is easy to take for granted: the trucker
with the ham radio, the soldier clipping a walkie-
talkie to his belt, the technician who slicks warm
gel over my belly then slides a wand to render
the moon-surfaces of my organs via ultrasound—
The inner conductor is surrounded by a tubular
insulating layer, surrounded by a tubular
conducting shield, and both share a geometric
axis: which is to say, the signal looks for the path
that’s clearest or rendered most safe from possible
interruption; which is to say, the distance
between the thing and its intended object becomes
more unbearable with each new iteration of time
and space. Why do you think the inventor
of the telephone sought a way to funnel the absent
one’s voice into his ear? We speak into our
devices, our tapping fingers send the messages
our naked eyes and bodies alone can’t throw
across the ether. Think of how any of such
wonders began: as string on a lover’s telephone
spliced from two diaphragms, two cans of beans
emptied and cleaned, their ends punched to guide
the string or wire. And other amazements!
—those early days when ice did not even pour
out of spouts on refrigerator doors or trays
from the freezer, but travelled whole like scaled-
down glaciers on pallets of straw for months
in the dark holds of ships, across the world— to arrive
in a tropical country so the cook could put good butter
and milk and eggs into a cake, and write with sugar
a message on top: To love, To fortune, To the future!
Luisa A. Igloria is the winner of the 2015 Resurgence Prize (UK), the world’s first major award for ecopoetry, selected by former UK poet laureate Sir Andrew Motion, Alice Oswald, and Jo Shapcott. She is the author of the chapbooks Haori (Tea & Tattered Pages Press, 2017), Check & Balance (Moria Press/Locofo Chaps, 2017), and Bright as Mirrors Left in the Grass (Kudzu House Press eChapbook selection for Spring 2015); plus the full length works Ode to the Heart Smaller than a Pencil Eraser (selected by Mark Doty for the 2014 May Swenson Prize, Utah State University Press), Night Willow (Phoenicia Publishing, Montreal, 2014), The Saints of Streets (University of Santo Tomas Publishing House, 2013), Juan Luna’s Revolver (2009 Ernest Sandeen Prize, University of Notre Dame Press), and nine other books. She teaches on the faculty of the MFA Creative Writing Program at Old Dominion University, which she directed from 2009-2015.
Author photo: Lisa Zader
The Paddock Review 