What the Mapmaker Knows

O is the ocean and t the consequence
of time at the edge
of a landscape of dots plotted into the plane
with a constant scale.

Any place can be located and later divided
by cultural and social data and sketched
on a napkin—disregarding distance
and leaving only the little one knows.

Description is reductive: a shirt on the back,
buttons on the front, a mind that is willing
to enact its own explosive end. What idiocy
the world is made of:

fierce justifications, landmines and such,
a plaid shirt, a rifle upright.
Day and night, an empire
of uncommon horror: the murderer singing,

"Every moment all that matters is me."
Tick-tick in the drifting dark.

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Copyright © 2011 Mary Jo Bang All rights reserved
from Conduit
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission