From the poetry collection
"Dreams of Departure"
by Jennifer Reimer

handmade and numbered

art by Jason Buchholz

**

In the middle of all this architecture you are
leaving. I will measure what you leave behind
by packing suitcases. Not everything will be
recorded. Your leaving, for instance, goes
unremarked by air and dust, our weary
household gods. This is what happens when
you leave: I open a book. I make the bed. On
the appointed day, I stay indoors. I'm at the
window, to answer to my name should you call
it. I told you power should be visible and
unverifiable but that was not a permission, not
a mask.

**

Jennifer Reimer grew up in the borderlands of Southern California. Her poetry, fiction, and collaborations have appeared in Commonweal, Our Stories, the Raconteur Reader, Parcel, Denver Syntax, the Denver Quarterly, and 26. She has an MFA from the University of San Francisco. She is currently a graduate student in Comparative Ethnic Studies at the University of CA, Berkeley.

Jason Buchholz is the art director of Achiote Press. Visit him online at jasonbuchholz.com.