My floor was a map
and the only light on was the slow burning yellow of my closet,
illuminating the cris outlines of the continents.
I run my finger over the borders, raised like Braille.
I dance over the Pacific. I dance over graves.
If you pull up the floorboards there are burial mounds and
the ghosts walk along the catacombs like factory workers, scurrying to lunch.
They tip their hats, their Indian headdresses, their monarch crowns, and grin.
They love my beautiful hair, which grows down to the floor.
They tuck it behind my ears, cooing mermaid songs like fairy-gifts.
Replace the floorboard:
here you are in Kennesaw; Naples.
There you are in Mersin; Mechanicsburg.
(I see you in Quianjiang; in Virginia Beach.)
Nail into the floor a pin for each body; wrap red embroidery floss around each port and industrial wasteland, every sleepy foreign village; span the continents.
I hear your heart in Zhytomyr.
(Listen: can you remember the screech of the train, under Barcelona?)