The Difference Between the Map and the Bird

by MARISSA PAYSINGER

This map tells me where the world should be,
tells this space of green keeps whole forests inside,
whole trees and birds and hills and roads inside
where the difference between the road and the river
is the river is blue where the road is black. The difference 

between the hill and the trees is the hill is named
and trees must be imagined. There’s no room on the map
for all the leaves and nests and birds the trees keep inside,
only spaces filled in with green and white where the world
became creased when the whole world must be folded again.

The white line the ridge I made frays whole roads,
whole rivers, whole names to white. 
These names would hold whole lives inside, lost them
when the fold frays the world to white. Yours is a name that tells
me where the fold keeps whole memories and heart
breaks, whole kisses and sighs inside where

the difference between the river and the road is the road
is a thought I can follow and the river leads to whole forests and groves
I only imagine. I only wanted to unfold a corner first
when we lay whole worlds down to sleep,
whole bodies that keep these thoughts folded

in white sheets, we lie in the dark when the words we say
seem more true when stark like us. Bared and stripped,
I would keep them where the lips are curved
where the lips keep whole questions growing inside,
unsaid, these words folded again.

When you dream, you go out hunting birds
though you don’t like hunting really.
Still, you say you pull them from nests and trees
by singing the names the birds don’t know they have
and they come singing in your hands, songs and tones
that tell you where the blue curved sky is the same

blue curved shell the birds must break through to become
birds that keep great wide expanses inside,
wings when spread keep the whole sky growing
inside their bones.

You make these hands a place to nest in. 
It doesn’t sound like hunting really.
But your hands reflect harm the same way wings
reflect the shape and movement of wind.
When you wake there’s a feather by your eye
where your dream fell out.
I take a kiss to make a crossroads and I ask
what kind of bird nested in your hands. Lark.

Lark sings doubt when you sing dark.
You say you pulled apart the wings
pulled apart the beak to peer inside the notes
and tone to crack it, the break in sky’s body
where the song fell out, whole notes and half tones
fall almost lighter than air, the song can’t keep blue  

inside it anymore. I worry what name it is
you’re singing, If I am lured—
a bird in your hands when mine were busy making maps
and the difference between the bird and the map is
the bird has room to keep the whole world the map tells inside
and the map folds the whole bird
to white.