Map

Even if you hold your breath and hide
thinly between books, the red covers lift
in and out just enough to see.
A small cry growing inside the folds
is saying open, open. I want you

unfolded on the floor, hills peeled back,
a white valley falling open,
a river miles below sending fine blue lines
delicately down the sides of mountains
puckered and tan as skin.

I want to know the way you have
of stretching out in arbitrary green
a plump shape odd
as the profile of a dog,
the tendency of coves to let
the ocean sink its fingers in,
the longing of peninsulas
...