“Lots of Ships.” This poem references Why The Ships Are She by Terri Ford.
“An Invisible Story.” The image of the tree comes from Jung, through Marie-Louise von Franz, who says in Shadow and Evil in Fairy Tales, “Jung shows that the tree symbolizes human life and development and the inner process of becoming conscious. One could say that it symbolizes in the psyche that something which grows and develops undisturbed within us, irrespective of what the ego does; it is the urge toward individuation which unfolds and continues, independent of our consciousness.”
“Way Down at the Bottom of Everything, Where It’s All Mixed Up and Everyone Is Everyone.” The words of this title are borrowed from Kumkum Malik. The language “looking on me in my distress” is borrowed from the fairy tale “The Black Woman’s Castle.”