I remember which way to go if I can face north
& close my eyes: at home, the Tillmans’ house

was north & stood in for the small dipper, somewhere
below the treeline. East was the city, too small

to light the sky orange or at all, the searchlights
from the airport probing nervously a clouded night,

saying please come home, so good to see you. West
was the back yard, over which my father launched

crude bottle rockets on summer nights, the best ones
making it to the cornfield past the property-line,

& we imagined them arcing over the barn, too,
burying their spent heads in the woods beyond.

I wondered if the farmer found the tubes
of blackened cardboard when he plowed,

or if he drove them over & in with cornstalks,
the stiff rotting bodies of field mice & cat-torn

birds, condoms the ugly neighbor-boy tossed to hide,
if he turned as much inside that bland clay as it would hold

each day, before night pushed inside him
& the ambulance woke us up again with its cries.

South was the pasture, the cows not ours but crowding
their slow, rough bodies to the fence for windfall apples

& corncobs, as though they loved us best for our sweet
offerings & how we named them. Beyond was the creek,

hidden in the downfolding woods, & then acres
of land I couldn’t think the end of or imagine anyone

owning, though the brush rattled & shots & baying
rang out autumn Saturdays so close I’d look

for bullet casings later & sometimes find them.
South was inexact. It was all that land & some

months the sun seemed to stay there whole days
as though it couldn’t tear itself away to be straight

overhead, as if the creek were such a mirror
it held the sun in thrall, as it held me.

The trees arched over like the awnings of fussy
shopkeepers & I could almost ignore the bell

my mother rang to call us home when the shade
would break open an instant & the water flash

furiously, lighting my cheeks like shame
come out of nowhere, too bright to forget,

all the way back to the house that says where
have you been so long? why are you lost?

– Jennifer Brown