The Ride to Ithaca

Music box plays
Close to You;
you still hear it on the last tick-
the one where you wait,
and then one last note
jumps out,
leaves the end
hovering,
finished only in your head.
With copious notes
carried around,
scribbled minutiae-
nonsense, really-
Nero fiddling
while Rome burns,
I’m reminded how the
Empire State Building
is designed like a pencil,
and the exact number of licks
required to get to the center
of a Tootsie Roll pop
is billions and billions and billions.
It is the destiny of a dreamer
or Indiana Jones,
to commit such bits of trivia,
important to no one.
In the car on the way,
half asleep in the passenger seat-
always that last bit of sullied snow
hugging the median,
and dim gray skies
brightening to the east,
where home is-
the air is tinted greenish
by all those trees.
They always wanted to jump-
they always did-
because those gorges invited them,
and so I figured one day you would,
too.
Tralfamadorians and non-linear time
so it goes
with a sugar rush of Skittles.
If you said was it enough?
one more time-
even if you could say it-
I’m pretty sure he would have jumped.
Why the hell not.