If I Were to Map the Land of You

If I were to map the land of you,
I’d have to soar so far above the view
that I could catch the last faint contours
of the fringes ‘round your thinnest ground –
the beach and coastline of your mind

that bind behind into the breach of cliffs

emerging from your fault-lines leading up

to barren mesas of your terrors blending

slowly into grasslands of your milder

anguish into forests into jungles into seeps

and deeps of unlit sexual complexities
that would be drying out – as I surveyed

the rational intentions in your understanding –
into vast Saharan sands – soon to swivel
down perimeters of your peninsulas

that lead towards the blind reflex
of walking feet: vexed parts of you that
move ahead no matter what. But oh! –
to map the land of you from that high
spot would make me miss the hints,

the glints that I can only get up close
if fleetingly. I cannot hike the whole
of you but I can sit in shadows and await
the breath and scent and strangeness
of the soul of you. So that’s what I will do.

.