I.
i was fourteen when i learned that columbus brought
guns and shackles to the new world instead of turkey.
last weekend, when you told me what happened to you
the night of october fourteenth, i had to check both of
your wrists to make sure they weren’t bound together.
i had to grow sea legs in the backseat of a parked car.
II.
sometimes hands are not kind.
sometimes hands explore people like diseases invade towns,
choking the distance between breath and body in seconds.
when he touched you that night, you must have confused
the cobweb of lines across his palm for transatlantic cables.
you must have forgotten that each year, the ocean spits out the
skeletons of ships who rattle the tides without her permission.
III.
when christopher columbus hit land, he wanted gold so badly that
he excavated it from the hearts of natives, took a midas hammer
to their spines until they bled pools of light around his ankles.
that autumn night, it happened to you too, didn’t it, golden girl?
except afterward, the stain you left on the white sheets was red.
IV.
in 1491, no one thought that the earth was flat.
sometimes history tries to rewrite things that make no sense,
that should never have happened to cities carved from trees
or girls whose bodies sing electricity into the midnight air.
if you listen, you can still hear the hiss of sparks on cold flesh.
you won’t forget the smell. they can’t remember anything else.