The women’s abortion ritual uses celestial geometry as a protective, navigational frame.

Evidence

Once in the woods we pair, squat, hold our legs open to each other. One Azimuth for every new girl. Our long tender hands coat each blooming womb. … In Arabic, I will recite the old poetry ending with altitude is never the same as azimuth. — Nikole Hannah-Jones et al., The 1619 Project, 185

Categorization

• FICTION: The Azimuth/altitude distinction — dead-reckoning navigation terms — as a poetic engine for a protagonist who maps her own escape might inspire a story.
• SHARE: For a friend into the craft of lyric poetry: the extended nautical/navigational conceit — ‘the long math of my feet’ — as the spine of the whole poem.