What the Mapmaker Knows

　　Mary Jo Bang

　　O is the ocean and t the consequence

　　of time at the edge

　　of a landscape of dots plotted into the plane

　　with a constant scale.

　　Any place can be located and later divided

　　by cultural and social data and sketched

　　on a napkin(餐紙，尿布) —disregarding distance

　　and leaving only the little one knows.

　　Description is reductive: a shirt on the back,

　　buttons on the front, a mind that is willing

　　to enact its own explosive end. What idiocy(白癡)

　　the world is made of:

　　fierce justifications, landmines and such,

　　a plaid shirt(個子花呢上衣) , a rifle upright.

　　Day and night, an empire

　　of uncommon horror: the murderer singing,

　　"Every moment all that matters is me."

　　Tick-tick in the drifting dark.