May 2017
Eric Nelson
enelson@georgiasouthern.edu
enelson@georgiasouthern.edu
After twenty-six years teaching writing at Georgia Southern University, I now live happily in Asheville, NC. The city is full of art, music, writing, and free spirits, and if that's not enough, the surrounding mountains are full of beautiful trails and rivers and flora and fauna. It's a great place to live. The most recent of my six poetry collections is Some Wonder, published in 2015 by Gival Press. For more information, my website is at http://www.ericnelsonpoet.com/
The Flying Map
The day we drove 200 miles into Virginia
Looking for a town we’d heard was filled
With books and antiques we never found
Because the town was in Maryland—
How to explain not turning back when we agreed
We didn’t know where we were going
Except that autumn light
Tinted the maples and apples
And that love is love’s only destination.
When we thought to check a map, you opened it
Fold by fold across our laps, the blue and red lines
Like charged wires between us.
As you lifted it for a closer look,
Wind ripped it out the window
Into an origami bird flapping over us.
Of that vivid day most vivid now
Is the sound of our unstoppable laughter
As we drove on to nowhere we knew.
The day we drove 200 miles into Virginia
Looking for a town we’d heard was filled
With books and antiques we never found
Because the town was in Maryland—
How to explain not turning back when we agreed
We didn’t know where we were going
Except that autumn light
Tinted the maples and apples
And that love is love’s only destination.
When we thought to check a map, you opened it
Fold by fold across our laps, the blue and red lines
Like charged wires between us.
As you lifted it for a closer look,
Wind ripped it out the window
Into an origami bird flapping over us.
Of that vivid day most vivid now
Is the sound of our unstoppable laughter
As we drove on to nowhere we knew.
"The Flying Map" first appeared in my book Terrestrials (Texas Review Press, 2004).
©2017 Eric Nelson
©2017 Eric Nelson
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