Knives Whistle

Cut from a mail bag

without a return address,

this land whispers its name

from a waterfall’s hairline,

pressed flat under bent knee.

 

Lifting your head

to look past coming night—
                    
                           knives whistle.

 

You scribble an address

to a place where weeds

door the passage back.

 

Stone in throat,

your hand reaches

to clutch a leaf,

as you turn

toward the rising moon—

                             dove-winged

Copyright © 2020 by Sherwin Bitsui. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on March 17, 2020, by the Academy of American Poets.