On Mackinac Island
there's a small art museum.
It consists almost entirely
of maps of the region.
Perhaps this is fitting
as maps are best appreciated as
the shadowy abstract
expressions they are. Functional
as the cardboard
display models in the adjoining toy
and gift store, and accurate
the way a cave painting would be
misshapen as the clay
grave markers
dotting the perimeter
of the cart path out back—
they serve a curiously
chimerical purpose
in a world this ageless, this self-
contained and total.
For a few dollars, though
trickles of visitors
fleeing the sun
will stumble in and frown at these
reasonable parchments all afternoon
looking, as the cartographers
were, for measured answers to
confounding questions—
how many words
for turtle shell were there
before the trappers got here
what were the taxes
on those limestone bluffs
before they were feted
with military canons, then
missionary houses, then finally
gold-roofed summer apartments
how far does the lonely
wind off the straits carry
what color—really
is Lake Huron water?