Maps all start with where we are

–the eye of the web, the confluence

of tenses–then move outward into

suppositionals, into the other.

 

Maps are all about that savage other

space that stretches out beyond the walls,

at the edges always Here Be Dragons.

Only foreign shores require portolans.

 

Paradise once meant a private garden,

walled and enclosed, safe and protected.

No maps of paradise exist.