The cartographer arrived after dusk,
his satchel swollen with unfinished weather.
He unrolled a map upon the kitchen table
where rivers wandered beyond their names,
where mountains drifted nightly in their sleep.
"You have drawn this wrong," said the widow.
He smiled.
"No land is ever where it believes itself to be."
Outside, rain rehearsed its ancient language
upon the roof's attentive skin.
The mapmaker dipped his pen into darkness
and sketched another valley between two heartbeats.
All night he worked.
At dawn, the widow discovered
that the road to her grief had vanished,
replaced by a footpath winding gently
toward a meadow she had forgotten existed.
The cartographer was gone.
Only the map remained,
and on its farthest edge, in careful ink:
There are countries within you
that no empire has measured.
Warsaw, Moscow
cities in Indiana
Pekin, Paris
towns in Illinois
All four northwest
of the Iroquois...
Don't ask me why I wrote this
Ask me instead for a kiss
We lie besweated together on our bed, our battlefield.
Where never and always victory and defeat are given or siezed.
Long years of exploration have not yielded up even tiny bits,
Of the complicated and beautiful continent of thy naked form.
The mountains of thy young and jutting breasts still rise in age,
Baby chewed and lovely, no stretchmarks mar their glad appeal.
Stretch marks nay, but service stripes on thy fleshly uniform.
I can only gaze and wonder where the shape of thy thighs will lead.
I chart still the swell of these velvet buttocks and the sharp valley there.
To draw a map of thee would charge a cartographer beyond man's ken.
This man knows not how ye change and dwell beside me and tease.
Perhaps the eyes of love see clearest for mine eyes see thee uncharted.
Lie besweated with me and glory in the joy of being each others gift.
Where this page wanders, I know not nor care, I wander with thee.
Parchment and pen and scribners tools I cast away to seek thy lips,
To kiss and find a new land to explore unknown and familiar to me.
Tell me thou lovest me and heaven be found and death doth not bring fear.
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