The One That Got Its Way

The far side of the world
Is just a flight, for now.
It could sink in the sea

Soon, for more lives on lives
Than all the lives were spent
When there was no world there—

All those lives when the worlds
Thought of as far and strange
Were in the skies and clouds,

Or in the ground, or off
The edge of what eyes glimpsed.
That world then was not round.

It sprawled out, like a cliff,
Or a tree, or a string
Of small lands on the seas.

Now it’s curled in our nets,
And we fret. We feel strong.
We’ve caught it, the world,

But it gasps. Will it die?
Or will our ripped nets rot
For years, once it’s swum off?