The Compass of My Grief

points in all directions.  Its
needle hovers like a homesick
kid in the camp parking lot, spins
and lands again on that magnetic 
	
north, two white-bellied winters
spent in women’s hospital towers
watching February’s languid suns
through bluish dawns of lost children

before the pointer drifts, wades south
through to the saltwater wounds
of missing fathers, life nipped
short, ashes spread in the west’s inky 

waters.  I look east to the future
now, a controlled burn of hours
where I’ve stopped all auditions
for roles of mother or daughter.