THREE-DIMENSIONAL MERCATOR

My thighs are road maps

where the highways are subcutaneous

and faintly blue,

the towns brown points charting the skin.

Earthquakes are frequent in these parts

as sartorius, quadriceps and adductor longus flex,

twitching their shadows

and waving their hair-like vegetation.

None of the towns have names like Birmingham or Leeds –

but only Blemish, Blotch and Mole.

Blemish has a population of ten thousand,

its major industry being boots

in spite of Chinese competition

and boasts a fine Victorian town hall

with a priceless mosaic floor;

Blotch is little more than a village

and supports itself thanks to a rendering plant

that flourished at the peak of the BSE débâcle

but has floundered ever since;

while Mole’s the capital of my left leg

and sets the national tone

with its theatres, opera house and pantiled promenade.

What recommends the geography of my thighs to me

is the micro-distances involved

and consequent low transport costs.

Delivering a load of boots from Leeds to Birmingham

involves a fuel bill for a hundred and twenty-one miles (one way)

and a day’s wage for the driver

providing he neither gets lost

nor detours to take in Sheila at Stoke on Trent

or Megan of the Choir in Huddersfield;

the same load from Blemish to Mole

is a journey of twelve millimetres,

and the boots can be carried at a fraction of the cost.

My thighs are road maps,

and, whichever way you look,

they chart the cities of my mind.