To make the lost person’s location become known forget nothing of the field & see that you were wrong As in no field no exilic no arcticality no longer a knot of inexplicable pain As in make no light & list the misunderstandings to leave unresolved as the snow disappears & lest you trample at the brink of a public abyss see sura & suġat, & the boy who was surprised when we rolled to a stop in Siqnazuaq— he thought the land a long way off When we had access to the same facts we had access to the same language before he made a wound of political declension & before we knew what it was to have evacuated our island our story & series of syllables before we wanted anything so dangerously that we went back to invent it again To make the song go up to the mountains or out on the sea until we no longer have to refuse the help of a people who continue to want us dead
Various Instructions for Translating Your Past