“Untraceable” by Laurie Kuntz

I remember your dad

trying to teach

you to read a map

taking your hand and tracing

all the traceable places to go.

At seven, you showed little

interest, preferred arriving

more than the planning.

Now, decades piled

upon those seven years,

you have a newborn daughter,

and all is planned

feedings, naps, outings, funds,

everything mapped out in veined lines,

 wanting so much to arrive

at every safe harbor,

destinations no map can trace.

Artist Statement

Every poem is a journey and every journey a poem. I hope my journeys strike a responsive chord.  My work results from living as an expatriate, raising a husband and son, and loving my 12 cats and 2 dogs.  On a daily basis, I place something in bloom in my favorite blue vase. I have eight published poetry books, and I am a four-time Pushcart and two-time Best of the Net nominee. In 2024, I won a Pushcart Prize.  My themes come from working with Vietnamese, Khmer, Hmong, and Laotian  refugees, and living as an expatriate in Brazil, Japan, the Philippines, and Thailand.

Laurie Kuntz’s books are: That Infinite Roar, Gyroscope Press; Talking Me Off The Roof, Kelsay Books; The Moon Over My Mother’s House, Finishing Line Press; Simple Gestures, Texas Review Press; Women at the Onsen, Blue Light Press; and Somewhere in the Telling, Mellen Press. Simple Gestures won Texas Review’s  Chapbook Contest, and Women at the Onsen won  Blue Light Press’s Chapbook Contest.   She’s been nominated for four Pushcart Prizes and two Best of the Net Prizes.  In  2024, she won a Pushcart Prize.  Her 7th book, a chapbook, Balance, is published by MoonStone Arts. Her 8th book, Shelter In Place, will be published by Shanti Arts in 2026. Her work has been widely rejected and at times widely published in Gyroscope Review, Roanoke Review, Third Wednesday, One Art, Sheila Na Gig, SWWIM, and other journals and anthologies. Happily retired, she lives in an endless summer state of mind.