Map

the way a map lies,
as though the earth were ever enough,
and the existential stare
across the green-blue painted paper,
there, where ‘x’ marks a spot, and
this thin, leaflike page cannot fathom
depths of the oceans or the mountains high,
and the pale blue of this ink knows little
of what I think is the color of the sea,
the way she turns that sick blue-black
in the wake of a school of fish,
ten thousand strong and learned,
they are,
they are not,
welcome on a page without stories,
a page without people,
so easy to see a world to conquer,
when the world is lines, names,
and nothing but a pale brown color
veiling the land where hearts do actually tear
and love there, no different from our own,
but whatever makes it easier for you
to do what you’ve come to do, as
after all, it’s just a map.