from Ordinary Work

2. Map of the Floating World

Sun-scorched sheets of water under us

a tiny cross: shadow of the plane

cormorant flying low

_

Consecutive days
highs and lows
rain or snow
in the half-inch
moving in
the afternoon

_

Points back where we’ve come

when we are no longer
touching anything but sky

dark blobs of islands
closed eyes
in a huge face

the slight rounding far off north
I come to recognize later as horizon

_

It must be a house: you step over
and you are in—
whether solid or outlined—

_

He took me high enough to see
the thin ridge of sand between bodies of water
where he’d perched our lives

Small mark on the map: each arrangement erases what came before
and is itself
replaced