I remember the year my brother loved a compass.
He called the magic in it science.
 
Compass in his out-stretched hand, he left the driveway,
stepped into the road, calling out North! West! 
 
His path made clear. I studied a chart, compared it
to my palm: lifeline, heartline, lines of the mind, of fate.
 
From a box in the attic: sepia photographs, letters
written a hundred years ago in a spidery hand.
 
Sometimes, of an evening, I felt the wind
moving past me, through me.
 
Invisible birds chirped out messages
insistent, untranslatable.
                        

You are not so alone as you imagine.
Who has never been lost? 
The thing to do is keep going, 
even in the darkness, even in the rain.
Summer mornings will arrive on schedule,
the trees filled with light, inhabited
by birds singing without reservation.
You say they know nothing of grief.
Isn’t that why we need them? To remind us
of what comes before, what comes after
nights the moon can’t be found.
Not far into the woods, a fawn
rests in a circle of ferns. You saw one once,
remember? — before it had learned fear.
Sunlight filtered through the canopy of trees
as the fawn took a step toward you.
And your breathing became the breath of trees.
                        

That night he was so jazzed up— 
talked faster than people could hear,
then turned to me, Let’s get out of here.
I followed, half-running. Street lights
flashed by and they were beautiful.
Laughter ran with us like an animal, half-wild.
The phrase spontaneous combustion
kept repeating itself in my head. 
Oh, Johnny. Claimed a previous life 
as a tightrope walker. Demonstrated,
walking heel to toe, and then with longer strides, 
along the railing of a bridge.
Said the angel who’d been in love with him 
back then, a hundred years or so ago,
would save him from a fall.
He adored the way lights flung themselves over
the water, rippled and gleamed.
The movement of lights on the water—
That’s what a heartbeat looks like, he said.
Felt he himself was mostly made of light.
I knew he’d always be flying off into some wild space
where I could not keep up. That night
for a moment he was pure light
but as I looked at him, it turned 
red—flashing, revolving 
shrieking toward us 
and it was I who fell
away from him
toward safety 
and regret.