One Land

once there was no ocean called the Atlantic.
an island was all, an island like a sickle,
shiny edges that glittered when the sun hit
the water. what there was also, an ocean

that separated nothing, that refused nothing.
even the poles was something you could walk to.

pangaea needed to be true, oh how much
i want it to be true again. continental drift
inched laurasia away from gondwana, the oceans surged
and broke their levee, entire pieces of land

broken like plates in despair, scattered into the
bluing sky. they landed wherever they landed,
wherever the wind fancied,
and i landed far from you.

millions of years ago we could have been
thrown together. but one rift engulfed another,
the subduction of the lava i used to warm myself,
then the earth itself, molten into rubbish.

i am losing ground here, trying to hold on
as things ripped apart. pangaea was
quartered by desire: i know it is
your horses racing away from its hands and feet.

a voice on the telephone told me,
don't fight against impending
geography. geography will win.
it won against pangaea, it always will.

but once there was no ocean called the Atlantic.
would i, would i that it were true again.