Poetry
The Ink-Stained Border
A cartographer of memory attempts to map a lost home through the mechanical precision of drafting tools, only to find the medium resisting the weight of exile.
The Drafting Table
The T-square lies crooked against the grain of the teak. I am trying to draw the line of a river that no longer stays within its banks. My hands hold the graphite, but the paper resists, absorbing the moisture of a humid afternoon that tastes of copper and dust. The inkwell is half-empty, a black pool reflecting the ceiling fan’s slow, rhythmic stutter.
The Poem
I measure the distance between the wall and the door,
Tracing the lines of a house that exists no more.
The blueprints of home are curled in the corner now,
Yellowing paper, brittle, marked by the floor.
My compass circles the places I could not save,
Finding only the silence at the center’s core.
The brass hinge groans under the weight of the frame,
As if to protest the map I began to restore.
A needle of light pricks the velvet of evening air,
Shadows lengthen, knocking at the threshold.
The Desk
The graphite leaves a smudge on my thumb, a permanent grey mark that refuses to wash away with cold tap water. My grandfather’s protractor sits on the shelf, its plastic yellowed like an old tooth. I touch the edge of the table. The wood is cool, indifferent to the lines I draw across its surface. Outside, the rain begins to tap against the glass, a persistent, irregular beat that matches the pulse in my wrist. Everything here is a measurement of absence.
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