i.words are markings on the mountainsthe mountains aren’t spokenthe words are plaited tracksthe words are branchesthe place flashes through timetime does not existtime turns backeach year I ascend and descend your linetimecarrying nothing on my backI stitch I unravel joy through sorrowcarrying each day on my back.ii.in the beginning was the law: scraps of earth allottedhow far? up to the markingseach time a little farther outbeyond.iii.boats of people leave in drovesyoung and strongtheir mothers in their headscarves left behindwondering “where are you now, my son?”daily and prayingin the light,will they find out in the end?“where are you, my son,” the goddess Thetis asks,a cuttlefish or cormorantdiving into the sealike a bird in the sky“I nursed you with rosewaterraised you with milkwith my immortal fireI submerged you within itto be a shield for your body for when you’re beyond my reachbut bodies are bodies, they’re tangibleand I had to hold you by the anklesupside downfrom your tiny heelsand this stamp this undying gripbecame your vulnerable marking, my dearthe place of the mother’s gripthe mark of death.”iv.they called and saidcome overwhen I got there a young shepherdstood inside the pen a tall redheadin a cobalt blue uniform choosingkids for slaughtermales mostly, two months oldhe took them one by one in his armsand while they bleated walked overcross dangling over his chestand carried them across the fenceto the other sidehe was Christ and Calf Bearerand Charonand also he was midwifeand mother he knewby heart whose child was whichhaving guided with his handseach one’s mouth to its mother’s breasthe showed it howand even taught the motherwhat to donow he shoves each one insidethe black opening of the truck bedthe mouth that wouldtake them to Hadesand whenone manages to nudgeits tiny head through the hole he stopsto caressit lovingly before hittingits nose back inwhen the mothers return to the penfrom pastureand find them goneinconsolable—he tells me—they grievedo they realize?will they remember?