we could get carried away
By

    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

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