first a bus that trudges through
the blizzard, gathering passengers
who bitch at the driver about
cancelled flights, delayed trains,
and the fucking cold--"No wonder
no one takes the Greyhound!"
as we prowl deeper into the snow.
We make Midway five hours late,
shivering in serpentine rows
hugging our luggage like the roped
and padlocked trunks that steerage
ushered onto Ellis Island.
The gates are stuffed with travelers
stuck, delayed, postponed, the terminal
looks more like an insane sleepover,
faces hypnotized by fluorescent
gloom, anxious and apprehensive,
phantasmagorical huddled hordes,
each seeking holiday bliss.
The announcements come in hoarse
rumblings, the delays, the cancellations,
the gate changes, and with each garbled
update the chill of discontent
trembles through the terminal.
This should not be happening!
We deserve better! This is
America! This is the 21st Century!
Jesus Christ this is our Christmas!
And when the plan arrives like some
vaporous ghost from the falling snow
and darkness, an ice monster,
an antediluvian horror, we board,
in defeat, all of the flamingo dreams,
the conch shell cocktails and glimmers
on she crab bisque and sand dollars,
palm trees and sun-drenched cabanas,
gator snouts and manatees, all these
reveries have been rubbed free from
the mind's wrinkles. We rise into
the snowy night, exhausted and vain,
transported into the absolute
zero of our lives, into the cold
above the world's skin, alone and
drifting into the starless stillness.
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