As a child I wanted to be a cartographer
Loved the lines, mercurial borders, soft colors,
the blue veins running through
the skin of the land,
All the places that could be home
A woman on the plane asks if I am Stacy
Well sheltered in a sweatshirt and jeans,
a marbled bun, I remember what it is
to be an anonymous blonde
Rarely mistaken for another now
the map slow crawls along my body
Hues route from curve to edge
An elephant that knew the circularity of
passage long before we were born
Dripping beads of purple berries
that get fuller every time I inhale,
the botany of abundance
A human heart with its thickest left ventricle
taking in little deaths and pumping out lilies,
so many lilies, milk of humility and devotion
There is a barn burning,
clean to the ground
The moon shines through the smoke
It is hard to tell if the butterfly is gunning
for the light or away from the smoke
In this wilderness are skulls of crow and deer,
the goddess whose name means fort,
difficult to overrun, fierce,
and unattainable
Three eyes, neurons, a sextant for the seas
and words writing themselves over and over
Revel, Action, Grace,
Born Ready, Now,
Now I can See
Bless the lover who knows to run his fingers
along the terrain slowly enough to chart
the stories in his blood
I took Spirit and injected it
under the most surface organ
What I am saying is,
this is a breathing invitation to travel
this is a tributary that leads to the ocean
this is a blueprint to the moon
and back
atimefordeparture 