by Janice Northerns

Take the land in your hands
and cut along imaginary lines
drawn on a map. Cut deep enough
to fling the past over your shoulder,

a scrap you no longer want to keep.
You’ve been told measure twice, cut once,
but the cutting always comes before
the measuring of what you’ve done.

See how the outline you’ve scissored
is in the shape of a name—your father’s,
your grandfather’s—yours. Steal the deed
in your sleep and know as you register

its edges, the paper is too large
to smuggle into the light. Begin folding
it in half, once for the land your grandfather
sold to make a lake, and again for pieces

parceled to your father and his siblings.
Fold until you are left with just these few
dry acres, evaporating, but impossible
to bend into thin air. Keep creasing

this origami apology until
it is reduced to a hard white pebble.
Slip it into your left shoe. Let every
bruised step recall your ancestors’ heels

grinding into dust those who walked
this ground before locks, before keys,
before deeds. Will time to run backwards,
turning you upside down until

the pebble floats through your blood,
lodging between lungs and heart. Feel
the catch as each exhaled breath coalesces
into the persistent ghost of erasure.

Janice Northerns is the author of  Some Electric Hum, (Lamar University Literary Press, 2020), winner of the Byron Caldwell Smith Book Award from the University of Kansas, the Nelson Poetry Book Award, and  a WILLA Literary Award Finalist in Poetry. The author grew up on a farm in Texas and continues to draw inspiration for her writing from her rural upbringing. Her poetry has been widely published and recognized with a number of awards, including a Pushcart nomination. She lives in Kansas and is currently working on a hybrid collection of poetry and essays inspired by the life of Cynthia Ann Parker.