Map (2013)

I want to see a map drawn to scale.

I want to witness and discover for myself

the boundaries that obstruct

borders that separate love and

acceptance

betwixt tolerance and diversity of knowledge

of tradition.

I want to see a slow death to prejudice and segregation,

a gradual rise over the hills on a map drawn to scale.

I want to look out the window of an airplane,

I want to press my nose up against the plexiglass-

The ghosts of my ancestors

and ancestors before them

would all look up and wonder,

“Are you who you say you are?”

I want to see a globe labeled with colors.

I want to see how many individual names they’d have to think up:

New Zealand Cadmium, New Orleans Mauve

New Guinea Alabaster, New Hampshire Red.

Each to accurately represent each and every ghost

who, in their own masochistic vexation,

longs see how insignificant we really are.