Miriam Sagan

Centered in northern New Mexico, this collection of poetry describes a series of journeys that create maps of place and memory. The poems travel south to deserts both mythical and real, east to childhood and the past, west to the Pacific and notions of Buddhism, and north to Alaska and a cold transcendence. Each section concludes with a return home where reflection charts locations and people lost to everything from the passage of time to urban renewal.From Map of the Lost: Take a Left at My Mailbox Cross Sierra Vista and enter the cul-de-sac Where the pavement ends Cross over and down into the acequia full of trash Where a sodden quilt lies in the middle of where Stream once moved sand In eddies. The homeless camp Disintegrates, only one mattress left And I'm lecturing my daughter Who steps back to photograph it "Don't come here alone," And she retorts: "I have since I was eight," and then "It's so peaceful here, but I hate the fence." This is no arroyo, cut by rain But a remnant of man, an irrigation ditch Now watering detritus, the leftover, cast off, plastic bags, and worse. From here you can cut Up behind the Indian School Past the transformer I didn't even know was there And come out where there once were tracks Now just the runners half buried in soil. It's Baca Street! We're back In the neighborhood where my daughter Immediately becomes lost "I don't get straight streets," she says. My money's good here, I buy two cups of foamy chai And look in her face, turning from girl to woman And want to construct My map of the lost.

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