When we moved for the third time,
we pinned a map to the wall
for our children, with distortions
of Earth we thought we understood.
A mathematician's palette to stake
each border: crimson for empire's
redcoat echo; blue for fleur-de-lis
& gilded halls; pink for quetzal berries
& the macaws’ blur; & orange to evoke
metered taxis, northern savannas,
sauce graine. All these countries
we have loved & lived & left.
But colour made complexity plain,
nations made visible, histories left
in the margins. In time, the flat world
showed where my children’s pressed hands
had become constellations of wonder,
reading by touch like driftwood charts:
notch, burl, seam, exposing the illusion
of proximity—each palm revising
the scale, tiny cartographers,
with their own legends,
reclaiming the map.