Maplines spider-webbing across
the creased plane of a folded page,
red highways intersecting blue backroads
connecting green interstates in starred
and circled cities, all numbered into memory
and legend--I-55 North to St. Louis,
I-40 from Oklahoma City to Memphis,
Sixty-six and Sixty-one to smoky, distant pasts.
All a jumble, a multicolored puzzle
I can only begin to solve with a finger
stuck defiantly into a random point,
marked decisively with a red pushpin.

Future is nothing but movement.  I was young,
sitting still as impossible
as suspending thought
until I knew my location on this map,
small, black arrow marking
the only place I could logically stop
just long enough to chart my route,
certain I will never pass along this road again.
Jeff Kersh