Keys & Scales

Back when maps were dangerous it was seditious
To give one to a foreigner; feeling so perfectly calligraphic that,
Implying the limp like an iamb superseded what was said of one
By the words themselves, one slyly wrote across the desert,

Allaying the panic took a device to craft a presence.
To say, in search of a role, that a double bend in the river
Was a perimeter of reparation,
We tried that of believers, like quoted back to itself

The wilderness took shape; the stars were of where
Two had met, in honeydew shadow, and made maps praise.

Copyright © 2005 Ange Mlinko All rights reserved
from Starred Wire
Coffee House Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission