Ars Literarium Volume IV
Detox Unit I work just beyond the shore line where nurses patrol the sand and pull the half floating bodies out of water. It’s a terrible thing to believe the world flat and want to sail to its end. They wash up on our island spared from finding the corners of the earth but heartbroken by the indifferent curve. Starved, they sip rain water and devour fish. I see them looking into its silvery blue flesh, dreaming of the oar’s final push that would launch them over the edge. We show them globes; spinning blue and green with familiar words bent softly in circles. no corners. Some find home and reluctantly put their finger on it. “Oh,” they tell me facing the low Western sun, tears collecting on their concave cheeks “flat maps are beautiful things to behold.” “You are a lucky fool. Build a house on land and forget the ocean.” Laughter. Eventually they sail away on a raft. Sometimes they take a small globe but always keep the old maps. Our island is where two trade winds cross. I work here, keeping my flat maps buried in the sand in a waterproof trunk.
Robert Henhaffer Peer Health Navigator Rutgers University Behavioral Health Care 26