Map of Sorrows

Unfold your map.
Soft as clothes,
thin as Mother’s eyelids.

You’ve read the bloody roads
and made the signs for sisters.
The map is older than Alone.

This town called Grief:
the morning’s carrion crow.
Let it fly before you wake them.

Its arc is closer than they know.
Breathe wider in the river Skin.
Break the sky’s dark wish bones.

2012