the persistence of memory, Salvador Dali

mapping

The marks on a body are the marks on a map. They tell you

where you have been, and how to get home again so that you can stop

going round inside yourself. Look down at the map. Look up at the 

sky. Where is the sun? Now walk. Make a new pathway, walk out of the

forest...

               land of horror and sweetness...

                                                  Ann-Marie MacDonald, Adult Onset

when the forest is a map you failed to learn

and those distended days of whining roses

surreal in the constructed vase of time

melting into fey insatiate poses

geographies of countries primed for peace

for worlds where war is served up daily

while  flowers weight doves down from burning skies 

high as bulletproof kites when windfall fails to cease

petals as the love me love me not of bald desire

desert sands as grainy trees of cookied fortune

lust as monstrous notion peeking into fire

Narcissus as the lisp lined friend you fail to notice

recognizing love as something blighted

constructed raw from shell’s exploded bliss

as multi-gendered lies we build on fading beaches

unnaming that of us then we then they then this

navigating scars that bleed through stitches

finding other routes from there to here

queering broken heart’s grotesque predictions

a dream of sleep beyond the braying ditch

what when the with of why begins to wear

thin remains of fabrics worn to dirt

what hurt of how and who and when to witness

where will the whence of wanton make you cry

on high as bulletproof kites where windfall fails to cease

petals pushing doves from burning skies 

word weary war torn smorgasbords of verbs served daily

syntactic maps of hungry buried bodies

look up look down

the grimy sky’s been primed for peace

while heaven’s false promise hides in sunny paths

the cloudy frown of hope smiles through the laugh lined crease