Poems as Maps

We use maps to find our way in the world, to locate ourselves in relation to others, to measure distance and record change.

Hello, holy rollers who plug in their amps, blow out the power in the building, preach to the street from the stoop.

Yesterday, I woke and believed I was a city, a green one. You look at me to name the place we become.

East of childhood, north of capitol offenses, just west of a big blue treasure chest : wet coffin of neglected bones.

Yes, I am Vietnamese, and yes, I am from New Orleans. We thought the worst was over. Then the water came.

You begin to move around in search of the steps it will take before you are thrown back into your own body, back into your own need to be found.

Generations all together in that house, still standing. Plumb lines hang down straight, towards the center of the world.

Keep turning past the old town hall, which is the new library, then the old library, which is now the senior center.

Use reasonable caution when walking unsavory districts for kicky dining amongst lush and plush urbanoids.

One woman drives across five states just to see her. The woman being driven to has no idea anyone’s headed her way.

When I was a nothing but light, traveling at my own speed toward the planet, I had no past. I had no body to destroy.

I am swinging open the passenger door. I am running toward a rusted horizon, running out of a country to run out of.

She remembers those 18 hours of hunger, those 18 years of struggle, the 18 Trans sistas showing each other love.

Limitless is a faraway place way beyond the rock-strewn ridge named possibility. Find yourself there.