the map emphatic with line grayed out Areas
declaratives of spellings conqueror

streets shrinking seas tell me what difference whose
name we pronounce over the pothole

Fiat’s coarse tires crack into earth begotten
of sergeants swallowtails topsoil

profiling how much run off
owl rain estrogen

below other horizons other names
for skulls let’s agree

the map self-portraiture parse
its starvations

cannot point us south

***

Priscilla Wathington is a consulting editor to the children’s rights group, Defense for Children International – Palestine. Her poems have previously appeared in Rosebud Magazine, The Baltimore Review, Spark and Echo Arts, Sukoon, Mizna and The Normal School.