<\/p>\n
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Map-Making<\/strong><\/p>\n You live close to this land, Some days you plot another\u2019s country, Here, inscribe my shoulder\u2019s span <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Born in County Durham, Martin Malone<\/strong> now lives in Scotland. He has published two poetry collections: The Waiting Hillside<\/em> (Templar, 2011) and Cur<\/em> <\/a>(Shoestring, 2015). An Honorary Research Fellow in Creative Writing at Aberdeen University, he is currently studying for a Ph.D in poetry at Sheffield University. He edits\u00a0The Interpreter’s House\u00a0poetry journal. Website: \u00a0 www.martinmalonepoetry.com <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Map-Making You live close to this land, map its contours as surely as your body\u2019s own: secret parting of valley lips, arterial push of river into tide, the sticky rill of your own still water. Some days you plot another\u2019s country, their muscle and bone becoming yours in the close-ribbed cabin that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10505","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10505","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10505"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10505\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10506,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10505\/revisions\/10506"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nmap its contours as surely
\nas your body\u2019s own:
\nsecret parting of valley lips,
\narterial push of river into tide,
\nthe sticky rill of your own still water.<\/p>\n
\ntheir muscle and bone becoming yours
\nin the close-ribbed cabin
\nthat domiciles a heart.
\nAnd always, after dark,
\nyou strip his night to its secret,
\nclaim the ground as your estate
\nbefore bringing yourself to a trust,
\nthat never quite comes.<\/p>\n
\nwhile I etch the gravity of your waist,
\neach ink as black as the other\u2019s,
\nthe survey essential to both.
\nCartographers then,
\nlet us share our dismal craft.
\nWe live close to this land,
\nunmap its contours as surely
\nas our own: its occult
\ndebris and dead ends.<\/p>\n