JENNIFER ROGERS

from Periplum maps our star-
   less shore

        They had taught themselves the technologies
            of bees
           and were making honey in Japan

and one little pheasant girl
dirty feathers in her hair
sworn into a village
where they discovered ten lichen murals
in rural caves

said she’d never seen a corpse
or an emptied shell
but knew where they were buried
and tried to imagine a destruction
that was hidden