Agoloso Presents - Atondido Stories Agoloso Presents - Mama Mada | Page 231

Mama Mada
The Trails They Leave by We nd y Kle in
The wasp, the honeybee, investigators of leaves
and flower heads, all riffle and proboscis,
translating everything they take into their own
sustenance, are prescribed in this, survival
an instinct, not a concern, but the trails they leave,
the flightlines they weave, make for ghosts
we would trace, if we could, back through the air,
much as we would trace the calls of birds
and beasts, the growths of trees, the sunbeams,
evaporations of rivers and seas, the world
in its raptures and griefs, the spirals it perpetuates –
as so many spins, so many wheels, spooled
back to us through the twists and turns
of the thoughts by which we find them sensible.
Tracing Orion by Maria Taylo r
You were already fully grown
and frolicking with lovers
under the stars, around the time
when I used my rough book
to trace constellations at night.
I’d recite names like magic spells:
Alnitak, Alnilam, Mintaka.
The hunter’s body in space
impossible to touch.
You in the middle of nowhere
fumbling with straps in the dark.
Me in a box room. Star-gazing.
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