A Cartography of Remorse
In the Kingdom of Regret,
rivers run backwards.
Mountains are shaken
to sand. Birds fly north
for winter. We map
the southern pole
and find only walls.
Many towns have lost
their names. The native
language disappears
for lack of transitive verbs.
The land is dry and arid
in the west, where choices
we never made drink up
a desert of promising water.
Beyond the borders
are regions of mystery
and people
with many preferences.
We reduce to scale
the forests and the seas,
and imagine how living
must be on the shores
of extinction.
Robin Shepard’s verse, prose poems and flash fiction have appeared in Quibble, Beatnik Cowboy, Friday Flash Fiction, Monterey Poetry Journal, and Flash Boulevard, among others. He lives in California’s central valley and is still trying to get the old band back together.
In the Kingdom of Regret,
rivers run backwards.
Mountains are shaken
to sand. Birds fly north
for winter. We map
the southern pole
and find only walls.
Many towns have lost
their names. The native
language disappears
for lack of transitive verbs.
The land is dry and arid
in the west, where choices
we never made drink up
a desert of promising water.
Beyond the borders
are regions of mystery
and people
with many preferences.
We reduce to scale
the forests and the seas,
and imagine how living
must be on the shores
of extinction.
Robin Shepard’s verse, prose poems and flash fiction have appeared in Quibble, Beatnik Cowboy, Friday Flash Fiction, Monterey Poetry Journal, and Flash Boulevard, among others. He lives in California’s central valley and is still trying to get the old band back together.
