Cotton Xenomorph is a literary journal produced with the mission to showcase written and visual art while reducing language of oppression in our community. We are dedicated to uplifting new and established voices while engaging in thoughtful conversation around social justice.

How to Draw a Topographic Map

BY ADAM HUGHES

Where there are mountains, draw

teeth. Where there are rivers,

 

make fleets of jellyfish.

Where the land is flat

 

and the horizon meets the dome

of the sky, draw a watering

 

of the eyes and the urge

to give up. Depressions

                                                                                                                             

should be scooped out

with entrenchment tools

 

and filled with charms

to ward off filling. Your pencil

 

will dull and refuse

to be sharpened. This is

 

to be expected, but not

celebrated. Always draw

 

with a prayer in your cheeks

and your eyes closed

 

and your fingers wrapped

around the windpipe of a shorebird.

 

Where there is certainty, smudge

the borders—where there are blank

 

spaces draw a bed of eels.

Write your dreams into

 

currents, watch

them drift from island to island

 

with all the confidence

of a sunset and the firm

 

steady hand of a navigator.


Adam Hughes is the author of four full-length poetry collections, most recently Allow the Stars to Catch Me When I Rise (Salmon Poetry, 2017) and Deep Cries Out to Deep (Aldrich Press, 2017). Born and raised in Central Ohio, he now resides in the foothills of Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains where he is pursuing an MFA at Randolph College. He can be found on twitter @adamhughespoet1.

Silkworms

Interview: Todd Dillard