You especially,

This is not a poem about migration, the validity of the horizon line, the questions asked at security checkpoints, how Korean women who cross borders have always been treated with suspicion, the last time you were denied at customs.

This is not a poem about the certainty found in maps and atlases, the formations made in the sky by our own invisible flight patterns, the way geese stop to wait for each other, how the north star is always found on the way to mecca.

This is not a poem about the mistletoe, how it slowly takes over a white oak, and does not let up, the way the yellow swallowtail is imprinted to cross great distances.

This is not a poem about having lost something, turning the world over with regret, wishing I had stopped to say how much you mean to me.

This is not a poem about echolocation, the sonar that dolphins and whales use to find each other, the way their calls permeate the density of water and how the honey bee can still communicate despite smoke and everyday obstacles.

This is a poem about me and you, and you especially who I have not yet met. The sisterhood behind closed doors, beneath mood lighting, how your work is miscalculated, the quiet eruption of underground volcanoes, the way we were never meant to be seen.

This is a poem about how my own two hands could never forget the labor of my body        or yours.

This is a poem about reaching past a locked gate, a secured fence, our own closed hearts, and knowing, we cannot stop the songs of migratory birds, or keep a Monarch caterpillar from reaching for the milkweed,

we cannot wrestle bones away from wolves, or stop the earth from being eclipsed.