the mapmaker
I sat on the shore of South America
and studied the edge of the world
I charted a course to the Azores via Greenland
and included a shopping tour of Freeport, Maine
I walked the equator looking for love
and strode through the Indian Ocean
like a marble octopus
I scribed a grid-line of every other latitude
and highlighted the international time zones
I measured the distances of mountains and deserts
and probed the shallows of great breathing swamplands
I put ice flows and frozen tundra
on top of God's little acre
took the coordinates of the Bermuda Triangle
and divided by the sum of the tidal brooks
in Guatemala
I cut ridges in the Arctic Circle
and scraped the last vegetation
from Death Valley
I outlined the political features of third world countries
and plotted the latest delineations
for the acid rain index
I scanned Russian maps with Japanese cameras
and took German compasses to their distance
I sat on the shore of South America
and never left my chair
