Pantoum of the Misprinted Map

By David Anson Lee

The highway ends where the blue ink breaks. 

A town is printed twice, then disappears.

The highway ends where the blue ink breaks;

the compass rose has lost its north and years.

A town is printed twice, then disappears. 

The river runs beneath the paper fold. 

The compass rose has lost its north and years; 

the road I need is marked with red: “closed.”

The river runs beneath the paper fold. 

A county line becomes a vein of red. 

The road I need is marked with red: “closed.”

 I turn the map and find the same road dead.

A county line becomes a vein of red. 

The highway ends where the blue ink breaks. 

I turn the map and find the same road dead; 

a town is printed twice, then disappears.

The highway ends where the blue ink breaks. 

The river runs beneath the paper fold. 

A town is printed twice, then disappears.

I follow what the paper cannot hold.

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David Anson Lee is a poet whose work explores memory, mortality, place, and the strange emotional lives of ordinary things. His poems have appeared in The Rush Magazine, Plainsongs, New Contrast, Still Point Arts Quarterly, and other literary journals. His debut chapbook, The Body Keeps Its Inventory in Shadow, is forthcoming from Kelsay Books. He lives in Houston, Texas, where he writes and works in medicine.