Atlas of Pain

by Laura Ann Reed


My father’s people came from that part of Russia
where Mongolian warriors on foaming steeds

once raged through towns, slaughtering the men
and raping the loveliest young girls, whose wails

echoed in the roads and fields for centuries. No wonder
my dad, handsome man, had those high cheekbones

and lidless eyes. No wonder I was born on horseback
galloping at break-neck speed, my jet black hair flying

around my head as I brandished a glittering steel rapier—
ready for all those long and bloody wars that lay ahead.


* * * * *

"Atlas of Pain" was originally published in Shot Glass Journal,

Laura Ann Reed received a dual BA in French/Comparative Literature from the University of California, Berkeley, and subsequently completed Master’s Degree Programs in the Performing Arts and Psychology. She was a dancer in the San Francisco Bay Area prior to assuming the role of Leadership Development Trainer at the San Francisco headquarters of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. She and her husband now reside in western Washington. Her work has been anthologized in How To Love the World: Poems of Gratitude and Hope, and has appeared or is forthcoming in MacQueen’s Quinterly, The Ekphrastic Review, and Willawaw, among other journals.