from "Maps"

by Julie Thi Underhill

And at each door, the hinges are seams
disintegrating as we follow the wind
to source an ocean burnished with rust

there’s nothing new we’ve lost
when loving it, the sea, we go missing

Since the past is not passed, but in rituals
indecipherable by others, draped in paper calm
memory’s gone we’ll necessarily invent it
two by two alone in pairs or simply alone

Even our names will not salute us
after we burn the maps to our bodies
we’ll never find those renouncing
impossible pasts, our bones smoldered
there’ll be no ash ~ only memory ~ stomped
the ground