Have you studied the online ads for getaways lately?
The welcome mats at neighborhood kiosks
impish in their cuffed-trouser weariness?
The snowshoed arbiters at the door, delusional yet endearing?
Think of their kids, their worrisome spouses,
their elderly mothers shortlisted for nursing homes.
The garbage scow wending its way slowly out to sea
blurts an ultimatum to landlubbers
whose wallets are hacked daily by newfangled come-alongs.
Yes, the laundry’s been folded
the library books have a day or two left
the cable continues to cajole.
Yet, there is little jollity here
she heard him say as he drove out of sight
reminding her of seventh period Latin class
and the togas hidden away, mothballed and shrink-wrapped.
A suffragette’s stem-winder is tossed into the ring for six figures.
Nostalgia of that ilk does little for the wobbly tram
does nothing for the bolts of lightning stacked in warehouses
awaiting the green light from the comic-strippers
tooling around town in monster trucks with a picnic lunch to boot.
