maps & legends

The Cartographer's Heart

mile after mile
year after year
with no one riding shotgun
with no one riding passenger side
not fear and loathing, but fear and living
while driving a lifetime across state lines
alone

hot vinyl jumpseats in the back of a
Country Squire station wagon,
Sandusky, Ohio

a Star Wars paperback bought at an
Esso full-service gas station
Minnetonka, Minnesota

blowing the carbon out of a '65 Impala
pushing 100 between wheat fields
Mandan, North Dakota

gone-west-young-man amidst
physical graffiti marking canyon walls
Malibu, California

stanching the cocaine binge bloody nose
while nodding off behind the wheel
Breezewood, Pennsylvania

stuck in humid 4am traffic, after,
out all night at a 'gentlemen's' club
Buckhead, Georgia

dropping off a dancer on The Strip
heading on west toward Death Valley,
Las Vegas, Nevada

dead marriage in a rearview mirror
along with I-95's funereal procession of cars
Boston, Massachusetts

grey april rains' pain(t) across a windshield
wiper rhythm, a pacemaker keeping me alive
Cuba, New York

your soft, cold hand warming my heart
driving over the Peace Bridge
Niagara Falls, Canada

how was i to know
all roads led to you?


image: Jasper John's interpretive map of the United States, 1961