THE MAP

THE MAP

THE MAP

The lines aren't really boundaries, not
the edges of anything, the woman said.
I followed her hand,
                                      point A to point C.

B was all blue
and she skipped it. C was a dot
with a circle around it,
                                          a city, voices,

everyone talking at once,
a cacophony. It was quiet in the car
before I turned on the motor,
                                             map on the seat

open, a map so sure
of itself. And rivers,
no color at all, jagged,
                                         indifferent to land,

cross-angled, irrational
though of course, they
move toward a wide place,
                                                 a delta, slow

magnet, such water,
an ocean. I could sit staring for hours
like that, I tell myself now,
                                                 for hours,

an exaggeration that might
please a child who does
almost nothing for hours.
                                               But it did. It took

hours to cross, only
ten inches long in my car, ten inches
wide, square of busy
                                      exactitude. What I love—

the swatches of silence,
an inch, two inches, a bare spot,
pale yellow where
                                 nothing had happened.

In fact I drove
through a universe, fields,
their intricate
                          wildlife of insects

and beans, civilization of mice
and moth and corn, windfall,
the great trees
                           finally over in an instant.