It lies on the dusty shelf of the living room
coffee table.
A placeholder
to fill in the empty grey spaces
when guests arrive.
Woven navy cover
dark threads containing
the shy, protruding spine
and fading gold gilded letters:
Atlas of the World.
You’d flip through the thick sections
when there was nothing to do,
and the sky was so heavy,
and the sunlight so strained.
It suffocated your thoughts,
but those pages weren’t like those cheap paperbacks
you’d find, discarded in a bookstore’s pungent corner.
They were almost… alive,
heavy, smooth, warm under your fingertips.
The strong steady blue
punctuated by splashes of blooming land,
rough borders that embrace
like long lost lovers.
You’d turn through those maps
and they would breathe shaky swallows,
rattling the house,
tearing down the rafters,
whispering of places that are waiting,
wild, green, and patient
for you.