Here Be Dragons by Lauren Scharhag

Here is the block where
I was first catcalled
by an adult man.
I was 11.
Here is the city pool
where an older boy
chased me into
the ladies' locker room
where I hid until
my mother came
to pick me up.
I didn't go back
that summer.
Here is the vending machine alcove
where a group of boys
cornered me during
a forensics tournament
when I went to get
a cup of coffee.
So many locations
and tableaus,
so many scenes of
so many crimes,
so many sites
of trauma.
These are the places we carry,
the cartography of our lives,
a terrain of wounds.
Memory charts no course
through rough seas, and these
are the spatial relations 
we dare to traverse.

Lauren Scharhag is the author of fourteen books, including Requiem for a Robot Dog (Cajun Mutt Press) and Languages, First and Last (Cyberwit Press). Her work has appeared in over 100 literary venues around the world. Recent honors include the Seamus Burns Creative Writing Prize, two Best of the Net nominations, and acceptance into the 2021 Antarctic Poetry Exhibition. She lives in Kansas City, MO. To learn more about her work, visit: www.laurenscharhag.blogspot.com