Search Means Loss

You wander through us, looking
For something you feel certain
Exists, something you may have

Lost. A friend, a ghost, someone
Who would make sense of all this
Complicated mess of us,

Maps not only grown so large
We cover the world and rot
From innumerable stakes,

But grown still larger than that,
Still growing, a rotting world
Unto ourselves, a forest

World of decomposing words,
A floor rich with revenants
Giving rise to tangled vines.

To live among languages,
In logosystems of signs,
Is to be lost among maps,

Within maps, within growing,
Sprawling, extending, fibrous,
Kingdoms of signifying.

Tell yourselves a fine story
Of how you know where you are,
Where all your words will lead you.