CARTOGRAPHY

The earth is perched on my shoulders when
I open Google Maps, the world contained in a
boundaryless boundary filled with simulacra.

I think often about hurling it into space,
letting this weight fall from my burden
were I not so committed to the people in

its grooves, the nooks and crannies of
raised reliefs and time-tossed ravages.
Atlas learned the earth this way:

rotating the globe with fingers
creeping round endless night and night.
Myth proves the titan is no oracle.

What then does the atlas have to show us?
Maps don’t show our detours, the centuries
of displacement forced from the whims

of the living or the margins where the dead
lay piled on top, sediment and sentimental
layers compressing time together.

taken on whims of the living
or margins where the dead lie.
The layers sit one atop the other

and the names of ancestors, the gods
and their rituals and all meaning-making
left as bone shards waiting to be read.

The thick lines of a map are drawn with blood,
walls plunging through a thousand hearts.
This is the way the world is made.