Maggie Smith | Maps | Glass: A Journal of Poetry

Maggie Smith is the author of, most recently, Good Bones (Tupelo Press, 2017) and The Well Speaks of Its Own Poison (Tupelo Press, 2015), winner of the Dorset Prize. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in the New York Times, The Best American Poetry 2017, Ploughshares, Tin House, AGNI, and elsewhere. In 2016 her poem "Good Bones" went viral internationally and was called the "Official Poem of 2016" by Public Radio International. Smith is the recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Ohio Arts Council, and the Sustainable Arts Foundation. She lives and writes in Ohio.

Maggie Smith's website

Also by Maggie Smith: Good Bones The Well Speaks of Its Own Poison Lamp of the Body Disasterology The List of Dangers

March 2018
Ohio Poets

Maggie Smith

Maps

I watched The Goonies in 1985 & believed or wanted to believe a wrecked ship could be sunk in the creek behind our house. I held a red Massey's Pizza keychain high & where the sun trained a cherry of light on the sidewalk, I saw rubies. I drew maps & the maps always led me through the trees to the rock bridge I'd built across the water. The center stone, slick with algae, was big enough for me to sit on, & I'd watch minnows flashing, water striders dimpling the surface. But I never dug. Never even carried the small, rusted shovel down to the creek. My work was in shining a light, drawing maps to gold doubloons, to jewels I imagined as cough drops, blue and red faceted lozenges. My maps led me into my backyard, where I sat midstream, listening to water chime around me, & tell me, how is that not treasure?

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