mercator projection
by
Monica Pace
When she awoke
And moved from one side of the door to another
She became a telescopic lens. Latitude and its leanings.
The air was flammable with it. She saw a couple
But they branched into two solitudes
Retracting middle age. Hooded eyes
By the hooded wall. Nylon coats,
Maps slithering from their hands
& they spoke only into the splaying papers
& maybe not even of the same city
of veins bubbling from the page into the rain.
It wasn't so much an argument
As an agreement to argue. A resolute starch.
And it happened per week
Some would stop her in the street.
Paths off with a foot. Maybe because always an arrow
Alone she stepped brisk.
Couples squinting for directions
Would compass her for it. She'd slip into cartoon
And snake a finger [that-a-way] remote.
And whenever she dreamed
It was always in mercator passion. Her personal meteorite.
A giant globed with weather she would glance a palm to it.
And shiver on that northern shelf.
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