Points of Orientation
 
 
across the field, stray dogs move out of sight. what darkness illuminates becomes plain by morning.
 
 
 
when a ring appears on St. Catherine’s finger, she scalds herself over and over again until
another appears.
 
 
 
with each form, a purpose can be supposed. when looking at the mountain, there is no visible measure of what exists outside of view. each debt accrues until the body finds equilibrium.
 
 
 
gestured toward the door, there is doubt if the door even exists. suppose I mean it while I am saying it though, asks Wittgenstein—consequentially the assurance that one does know it can accomplish anything.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
The Struggle Has Always Been Inner And Is Played Out In The Outer Terrains
 
 
disjoined I know the fowl teeters, and when left on its own it is easy prey.
 
 
innate, thought withdraws into each image narrowly held together.
 
 
the desert’s scant instinct peers over and shadows behind.
 
 
no letter comes no reproof comes. if you could hear, what would silence hook clean onto.
 
 
a dream reoccurs. foliage held at sea level and what is rooted remains so.
 
 
each saint rises visionless and waits. creaturely, the mountain invading absence.
 
 
nothing perceptible permitted itself change, and yet burdenless I had awoken many times.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
SARA LUPITA OLIVARES is the author of Migratory Sound (The University of Arkansas Press), which was selected as winner of the 2020 CantoMundo Poetry Prize, and the chapbook Field Things (dancing girl press). Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The New York Times, Gulf Coast Magazine, Denver Quarterly, Salt Hill Journal, Quarterly West, and elsewhere. She currently lives in New Mexico where she is an assistant professor of English at New Mexico Highlands University.