Lisa Compo

Exilic Return

I have a language in movement,
an inheritance             of deciphering

steps. Each bone         memorizes
that careful sort           of quiet.

I’ve fallen for palm readers: how
they know and don’t. My hand

vector-less,      waterways pressed
away for convenience—I am left

tracking only               by distance. The perpetual
mantra: safety             in going. Pinhole-

shaped moonlight through my blinds
makes an album          of bodies 

on iron,            faded and emulsifying
their lacquered spirits with the voided

sky.     Their faces woven into
a loom in which          memory is a spell 

flared, words without              manifestation.
Not every memory      is electrical. My body 

remembers the way     my mother ran, slept
on porches before she was 

a mother. The house
always             lamplight, unhinged 

doors. What if I could read     our palms,
find an origin?                        Our hands 

simple as answers. At night,
when we were very small, my brother

and I would trace the lines
of each other’s hands. This was how

we went to sleep—the house becoming
transference: too bright, deafening silence.

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Lisa Compo is an MFA candidate at UNC-Greensboro. She has poems forthcoming or recently published in journals such as: The Journal, Rhino, Puerto del Sol, Sugar House Review, Cimarron Review and elsewhere.