Cartography

The best memory is not so firm as faded ink.
—Chinese Proverb

The body was one thing we always had

in common, even when between us

a continent unfolded. Eric says,

We scattered his ashes beneath the Japanese maple

here behind the house. No ceremony,

as you wished, but this...

What you wanted from me was complex

and simple, both. Once you asked for more

than I had to give. I live

with this; call it regret. Your hands bloom

in the intaglioed scrawl, creased onion skin tattooed

with garnet stamps from Pietrasanta,

a sifting of marble dust...Images: chiseled

jut of jaw, cheek, bridge of nose—recall

each granite face rising from New Hampshire

dirt upon which faltering, you last stepped.

In 1729, long before either of us came

to be, Reiner Ottens dragged his fine tip

across a smooth sheet: Globi Coelestis

in Tabulas Planas Redacti Pars III. Bright beings—

lobster, serpent, bison, dove bearing the requisite

sprig—swirl and writhe over lines that pin

distance and story to time.

Spectral creatures that we are, connecting dots

to chart our ways....If only I could wrap

the whole plane back into its ball.

Without your body in it,

this world's gone

flat.

(Jack Marshall, 1932-2009)

Source: Underdog (University of Washington Press, 2011)