What the Atlas Is For

Third day of rain and I'm at the closet

before I know I'm moving—I take the atlas down,

spine cracked at South Dakota, pages soft,

the whole thing smelling faintly of some town

I've never been to. I carry it to the kitchen,

sit. Rain loud against the glass.

I find a county road and trace it north

and let the afternoon slowly pass

through names: Mobridge, Ipswich, Eureka.

My finger on the paper, the paper giving.

The silence of a habit kept so long

it starts to feel like something close to living.

The gutter backs up outside. I sit there

moving north through miles I'll never drive

and feel it—tender, a little embarrassed—

that I still do this. That I'm still alive

to this particular need. The rain keeps at the glass.

The atlas open. My finger on the road.

I don't know what I'm looking for.

I don't know what the atlas is supposed to hold.