Mapmaker
from The Body Geographic, a collection of essays and poetry
Honorary Mention at Sebastopol Center for the Arts "Not Just Landscapes" exhibition
Curator: Robin Dintiman
from The Body Geographic, a collection of essays and poetry
Honorary Mention at Sebastopol Center for the Arts "Not Just Landscapes" exhibition
Curator: Robin Dintiman
All across her body are signposts Down her torso weaves a long scar at the juncture Where ribs separate and the body becomes soft and round The scar disappears just below her navel A train track On her hip a sliver the size of a tiny railroad crossing An inch across the throat a thin-lipped half-moon Above the left collarbone, a naked river Two small crosses bridge the top of an arch An inch mile-marker carves a groove in the groin Another hails its salutation at the top of the thigh Cancer didn’t form her but carved a map on a scatter of bromeliads Floating in space above drifting desert sands Before the disease called by the name of a man Not her father staked its claim and snaked its invasion Through the isthmus and tributaries of her lymph glands The only roots she had known were unplanted Unpalpable on their airborne journey Unlike the first lump in her neck At nineteen, infected by cancer, injected by heroin By a white-coated nurse who pricked her skin into silence The stitches and scars of outrageous fortune With her father by the bedside with unseeing eyes Pain rebelled, erupting in visions of showers Gashouses behind closed lids The cremetoria of her ancestors Hospital Holocaust Hallucination Hailing from Eastern Europe The clandestine birthplace of her forebears As yet uncharted Except in dreams An unconscious monument To the tune of the unknown Jewish daughter On a landscape of shifting clouds |