Temporarily stepped out to see what condition my condition is in
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.
Mary Jo Bang
Conduit
Spring 2011