The Cartographer's Margin

Here is the border of what I know of you— past the surveyed coast, past the estuary where your sentences break apart to deltas, where the ink runs pale and the paper shows through. Old cartographers filled their margins with sea-beasts curled like parentheses, with forests unnamed and entered only by wind. I have drawn you where I could with care: the bay of your collarbone, the small ridge of some old grief that tilts your left shoulder, the harbor where your laughter goes to anchor. But at the edge of every map there is a line that means: beyond this, I have only guessed. I have only placed my hand where the land runs out and felt the cold water begin.