This has always been a planet of infinite sides
though the Mercator projection on the fourth grade wall
made it look like a table cloth

given a choice most people want to sit at the table
like starving vagrants off the street waiting for a crumb

that they could have set out on an endless journey
and feel the breeze at the top of seven continents
never occurred to them
nor that their bodies culminate eons of evolution

and here comes dessert
Cairo dates
Majorcan olives

and many beauties of mixed race
beings of unknown label
all seated at the table
whose only experience of a curved surface
is the ocean.