A study in cartography

 

She felt the weight of her head as she cradled it in her hands

 

not far from her idol form

 

an old road – rutted and overgrown – wove past.

 

The dust that was periodically swept up, when a bike or car

drove by, was concealed behind the brick walls that she sat

behind.

 

There beside the second floor windowsill, she sat

 

a nearby globe cocked on its axis mimicked her spine and head. 

 

She traced the crevices of her face and ran her fingers through

her hair

 

such a familiar way.

 

Amongst the fortunes that the globe beheld. The weight of her skull

that was supported by her neck. It could be none all the different.

 

To rest was just the same.

 

 

 

 

The woodpecker tells me of who I never knew.

 

 

There are still screws in the wall from

the picture frames you dismounted and

packed away.

 

These scars on the apartment wall have joined

the other skids, hooks, and holes of anonymity.

 

When the sounds of trolly wagons ring through

my ears, I yearn for an era that I've never known.

These same songs are sung when planes fly

above and conversations are heard through walls.

 

These are the days that I let rose buds crumble

and daisy heads droop towards the floor.

 

The marks on the wall and the listless flora on

tabletops are nothing compared to the ambient

noises that seep into the space you left behind.

 

It could have happened yesterday or a century ago,

but I never noticed the wall paint has cracks in it;

then again, there aren't any woodpeckers around

here at all.

 

 

 

 

 

 

What the sand betrays

 

The finite young woman, was no

more than five and twenty years.

 

She was by far the youngest shell out

there on that rock, that arid landscape.

 

The dress on her back being the exception,

 

and yet, as it was of like color to her fragile

form, it could be said that it'd become of her

 

rather than a disparate thing.

 

Her sunken back mimicked the shapes of

that seemingly dormant terrain. As did

the surfaces of her frame. Of like colors.

Such a simple game.

 

The burnt ocher horizon of hill and glass

met her line of sight in such a way that neither

encouraged her to squint ahead, nor lift her hand

to shield her eyes.

 

For what was ahead was not unlike what she'd

left behind. Namely the difference being that

there was no sign of tread or stumble just ahead.

 

If she'd thought to turn back and find her path

it'd have been easy for just a few steps.

 

After that it'd have been near impossible.

The wind was subtle, to her it was nothing but

a whisper. But where lips do form to mutter such

a breath, so might one care to smear with a kiss.

 

An effort to trace her trail was folly.

 

A perpetual trek was worth only in so much as

one might aim towards the sun just ahead.

 

 

When then folds into now and other grievances

with nature.

 

My mind twisted like the cursive hand of a scribe.

All of my thoughts about what had been seemed to

have contorted into something idol and frozen;

something that I hadn't known. It was as if each one

was a photograph that I had taken, but the negatives

had been developed by another hand.

 

I wanted to wait for the waves to wash away my path

in the sand. But wait, the water has broken and my foot

steps are still there, although feint. My face still tingles

from the splash of the tide.

 

Perhaps, I am the spy in the sky.

 

 

When the sky swallowed the land

 

The wire fence's grate cast a shadow upon

the nest. These feint little lines made it hard

to discern which side of the braided metal

railing was meant to be entwined.

 

These little shapes, cut from the sun and laid

out in dark gray, were hardly details that could

be readily observed by the unabsorbed window

side gazer.

 

In truth, I wouldn't even normally include myself

as one of the few that cared to look at such subtle

nuances. But it was a simple Sunday and there

was little else to co opt my time. The daily paper

was late on arrival and the chirp of the birds was

as pronounced as the croak of the coffee pot.

 

The little sepia bed of twigs and leaves was lost

in the industrial cladding. Fences of this sort

were none to be considered unconventional. All

the same, it seemed a shame, to see the illusion

of such a cage.

 

Amidst the rays of my morning suspicions, none

were as boisterous as the sinking bed of earth,

which was being swallowed by the sky.