SENSORY SYSTEM OF NAVIGATION 

A homing pigeon, he tells her, watches  
the sun but senses the magnetic field  
of earth and the force of its rotation,  

imprinting a grid across the brain  
with coordinates of longitude and latitude.  

"I hate to fly," she says, "am afraid of  
margins of time, and don't go out  
without strewing a trail of seeds behind."  

Magnetic field and rotation are forces beyond  
her grasp, but she - though tentative - is  

a homing creature shaken loose  
who glides toward the faint longitudinal line  
where today feathers into tomorrow. 
 

Copyright 2000, Susan Terris 

Susan Terris' book Curved Space was published by the La Jolla Poets Press in January, 1998.  In 1999, she had two new poetry books published:  Eye of the Holocaust (Arctos Press) and Angels of Bataan (Pudding House Publications). Other recent books are: Killing In The Comfort Zone (Pudding House Publications) and Nell's Quilt (Farrar, Straus & Giroux).  Ms. Terris has had poetry published in many print and electronic journals including The Antioch Review, The Midwest Quarterly,  Nimrod, The Southern Poetry Review, and Switched-on Gutenberg.  Her web site is:  http://members.aol.com/sdt11

 
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