Magdalena
She counts the wind that blew her west
over an ocean as her first breath;
the brightest of whatever constellation
stood sentry overhead, her natal star.
She can’t spell her birthplace, a town
half a day’s walk from the once-capital
of a land forever changing boundaries
by the logic of politics and war.
She can’t tell the hour of her birth,
but only the moment of her mother’s death:
it smelled like all of her own people
dying, which is the stench of fear.
Orphan with only her lungs to beg
free air in a new place, she asks you
to cast her chart. No matter the past,
she says. Just tell my future. Here.
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