from postterrain [5]
Craig Santos Perez

 

 

blank maps

don't exist

 

or have we reached the place to

voice rising

 

let me see your hands: a commonplace

a lineage all the way

to the sun

 

there appear 'instants'                 between word and

 

word—                                     'vein'—

 

you say 'story exists in every          thread'

 

yet no one gave us instructions on how to prepare them

 

you say listen

to the sound of underground

 

water                                         is it 'tangible' 'definite' 'calling'

 

blank masks

don't exist

 

you say place your hands under the water

 

yet the water

tunnels

through our hands

 

 

 

 

~~~~~

Craig Santos Perez, a native Chamoru from the Pacific Island of Guahan (Guam), is the co-founder of Achiote Press and author of two poetry books: from unincorporated territory [hacha] (Tinfish Press, 2008) and from unincorporated territory [saina] (Omnidawn Publishing, 2010). He received the Poets & Writers California Writer’s Exchange Award in 2010. His poetry, essays, reviews, and translations have appeared in The Iowa Review, New American Writing, Pleiades, The Denver Quarterly, The Colorado Review, and ZYZZYVA, among others.