On the day she raised a hand to her liquor-fisted father,
the treasure map appeared like magic, dotted lines looping
from there to where an X marked the spot farthest from
the beatings she would staunchly refuse a berth in the
warehouse of memory, though her dreams left the back
door ajar. With the first step she was out, away, and gone.
As in all epic quests, there were talking beasts and god-sent
friends, a ship of fools — forgone husbands at the oars,
and children she adored who unwittingly pulled her off
course for the decades it took to mother them up to lives
of their own. By then the map was mislaid, and a forgetting
fog rose to steal away the part of her that wished to travel on,
yet even as she sat unspeaking, staring into the distance
unblinking, with a brow pencil she traced the route straight
from arch to arch and on to a place beside her ear where
the target whispered, “Almost there. Almost there.”
©Dana Hughes 6.21.18
Furthermore... 
Oh Dana! Just finished reading this at the General Assembly here in St Louis. Here in the midst of much verbiage spent on so little, your poetry is real. Everything here is merely spectral. Thx, Ted
Ted, thank you for your kind words. i’m positively flabbergasted that you would take time while at G.Ass. to read and comment on my work. Bless you! D