Love Letters for the Itinerant Lisa M. Bradley Flood-swollen the atlas burst like an accordion once it docked on dry land. You took a pocket knife slashed some keys and kirigami presented me a mildewed compass rose. It brimmed my cupped hands frutescent with meridians the layers of latitude and longitude dense as peony petals. If railroads didn't exist I'd lay down tracks of twig and broken bone I'd ladder hills and valleys with my ribs to get to you. When I ran out of rungs I'd reach back naked lungs heaving and re-cast those bones tread them to spindrift, or until papel picado your signal swept through the trees and I ran aground on your doorstep.
Lisa M. Bradley grew up in South Texas, before the construction of the Border Wall. She writes about boundaries and those who defy them in works ranging from haiku to novels. Her poetry and prose have appeared in numerous venues, including Strange Horizons, Cicada, and The Moment of Change: An Anthology of Feminist Speculative Poetry. She blogs about Latin@ representation in media, mental health issues, and horror across genres at cafenowhere.livejournal.com. She also tweets and tumbles as cafenowhere.