English
Français
Deutsch
Italiano
Español
Redrawing the Map of the Known World
Published Nov 21, 2022
Updated Nov 21, 2022
Culture
1 min
Culture
Published Nov 21, 2022
Updated Nov 21, 2022
1 min
1
Like
0
Love
0
Solidarity
0
Wow
0 comments
446 readings
On Panodyssey, you can read up to 10 publications per month without being logged in. Enjoy9 articles to discover this month.
To gain unlimited access, log in or create an account by clicking below. It's free!
Log in
Redrawing the Map of the Known World
Contribute
Redrawing the Map of the Known World
The tower was the father I never had.
Its topmost turrets are washed by maritime hegemony.
Like a frowning profile, I know
the Moorish balconies by their protrusions.
Little is known about my youth.
I studied mathematics and navigation as the times demanded.
An extension of my index finger,
auxiliary lines set off for the shores of
an appropriated spice trade.
On the twentieth of November a shoal of names
flared up and blazed across expectation.
As we rounded the Cape of Good Hope
under the Portugese flag, the Leonids
were staining the horizon turquoise.
What’s a pension, an estate, a set of spurs,
when you can name a river in Mozambique after copper?
What are four hundred women and children burnt to ash,
when you can hoist to the yardarm
a new, more lucrative era?
©Anna Bentley 2022 for the English translation
446 readings
0 comments
Previous publication
1 min
You can support your favorite writers
