Amber Edmondson is a poet and book artist living on a decommissioned Air Force base. It's probably super haunted. Her work has appeared in Autostraddle, Freeze Ray Poetry, and Menacing Hedge, among others.
Unsure How to Spell the Native Names, He
Gives Them New Ones Instead
Show me the women
with maps for faces.
Show me their compass rose.
Show me the roads
they've walked,
piles of stones,
fields left for lambs quarters,
stinging nettle, dirt
scraped under nails.
Show me the women
with constellations
for names. Show me
black holes. Show me
the stars that form
their clavicles,
that glow behind
their skin, the lanterns
of their bodies
shaming fireflies,
incandescent bulbs beneath
sway-backed porches.
Show me the women
showing the mapmaker's hand.
Show me misnamed provinces.
Show me her hips
in two dimensions,
the bones of her thighs aligned
to guide each ship back home.