I.
We memorize maps on a different back,
the back way. Uncrinkled paper skin,
like the land of our knuckles. We know

how to get back, how these hills stack
against morning moon. Crescent so thin,
and tilted, the Flint Boys begin to row.

II.
When we ask you which way is up, or east
your eyes wind in answer, a rain so female
sun daggers dim that way in your pupils.
Mornings an ankleload of missed scars

from the Holy People. Sprinkle a feast
that way over the monoliths. A male-
rain so big you’d have to know that which pulls
upward from your legs into the bars

III.
of your head. How do you step this warp
otherwise and not know? Great grandmother:
a Hand Trembler. She knew the land,
the stars and taught me to memorize knots

of barbwire. They were too new and sharp.
The way his pain was boy. My father
cried in the moon-lit bus: tracing the arches.
After hours he rose to the glimmer dots.