“There isn’t a straight line in the world,” Heather McHugh
once said. And Paul Klee rightly claimed
that “Drawing and writing are fundamentally
identical.” And Kathy Wright cherishes
her mole. Her mother pressured her
to have it removed, but Kathy
drew the line, figuratively speaking (literally,
she ended with a dot), whereas a cartographer
traffics in actual lines (dots too), omitting maybe
a cul-de-sac, maybe a toxic creek. He makes
a mistake to wink at the way things really are, so
his work can then be copyrighted—sold—
because cartography, like Kathy Wright
sanctifying her mole, is ultimately a practical art.
Was Zeno being practical when he supposed
a line is made up of an infinite number of points?
No, but Roethke was: “Lust fatigues the soul.”
Also Mishima: “Lust inevitably
attaches itself to fragments.” So if
you’ve driven all day, pondering trade-
and beauty marks and map minutiae
and Andy Warhol’s soup cans and the endless
implications of mass production, it’s then
that the blue blue information signs
positively sing of GAS FOOD LODGING
and you feel invisible, enchanted, lost:
flawless, if you know what I mean.