I WAS NOT EVEN BORN WHEN YOU INVENTED MAPS
You had no idea where you were going.
You rode your bike through the blooming
bushes and knew the names of everything
amazing. Every morning I painted your portrait
and every morning I had a new painting of mist.
What I meant to do buckled under the weight
of what I didn’t and that is how we keep living
so ablaze. It is not as if we aren’t sometimes
moving in the wrong direction but what I mean
by wrong is coming up roses. If you want to find me
I’ll be in the other room translating my regret
into 25 years of cookies.
NICK STURM is the author of the chapbook WHAT A TREMENDOUS TIME WE'RE HAVING! (iO Books, 2012). His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Aesthetix, Dark Sky, Dinosaur Bees, Forklift, Ohio, Hayden’s Ferry, Jellyfish, Red Lightbulbs, and elsewhere. His reviews and interviews can be found widely in places like Coldfront, HTMLgiant, The Rumpus, and elsewhere. He is associate editor of YesYes Books and curator of THE BIG BIG MESS READING SERIES.
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