let’s go somewhere new,
somewhere nice,
like Scotland
it doesn’t matter where.
we could quit our jobs and skip town.
we could sell haggis and
weave kilts and
if you don’t like the food we could grow our own,
we could build a cottage in the highlands and
surround it with white flowers.
or we could try Peru instead.
we could forget these dusty plains and
from the Western coast,
the mountains will be that beautiful shade of background blue,
just like the crayons we used
to color the ocean.
we could run barefoot through Incan ruins
flailing and flying and speaking in tongues like
lawless fairies
and we could raise llamas
and curl their wool
and enter them in horse races.
we could love them even if they lose,
just like we promised to when we were kids.
or we could go to Egypt –
we could be
vile, unprincipled, yellow-bellied tomb robbers
and live without honor and rain,
in silence and shadow and sunlight.
we could imagine that it’s the same sand that
Cleopatra and Marc Antony
once burned their toes on –
that it’s the same scorched, still air that once
chapped her lips and made him feel like he was swallowing fire,
that it’s the same hushed ambiance that once
lulled her to sleep and made him wonder
whether it was the desert or its queen
that left him gasping for breath.
but if you’d like, we could stay right here.
we could just
cut off all our hair and fill our shoes with mud,
burn up all our money and burn those
horrendous long black dress socks until
there’s smoke in our eyes, and
we’ll laugh while we do it –
that wheezing cackling pants-pissing laugh of yours
that used to scare away the birds.
i haven’t heard it for a while.
if you’d like, we could get carried away.
we could leave the birds behind
let them build their homes in our empty nests.
i don’t care how far we drift
how many steps we take into the stratosphere
as long as you’ll snag a fistful of my shirt
and steer us back to Earth.
and if you’d like, we’d never have to settle
let’s just follow the clouds
(or the stars if we prefer their style)
and they’ll lead us to a place that’s as deathless and as endless
as anything we ever imagined
and we’ll never have to ask where or why.
maybe they’ll teach us the difference
between novelty and peace of mind
and we’ll find that every beat-up rest-stop town along this highway
is a paradise all on its own
and we’ll be happy even after
the last stones have fallen and our travels
are long over.
and wherever we are,
we’ll keep track of the days with the shadows cast by the
ancient megalithic clocks
in our bones