The trip

Reading the patina-seasoned bronze postcard
at my feet stokes no inner desire of mine to travel

Details are scarce; dates, no places.

This is premium vacation time, a long time coming
traveling solo; no timeshares, no all-inclusive-cruise –
hostel or hostile? No clue, just reading the postcard

No routine platitudes, clichés; ‘having wonderful time’
‘wish you were here’ – is he really, on either count?

Once you have saved – been saved – and pay hefty
sums to take this trip the obligation to proclaim your
enjoyment becomes an eternal Sword of Damocles –
twenty-four/seven party or bored, bored, bored, bored
matters not to reader, nor apparently, the writer

Postcards are banal, erudite half-truth memos;
thumb—your-nose-at-the-workaday-slackers jokes, and
‘wish you were here’ – not. ‘Having really wonderful time.’

I’ll bet – because we all place ours in some way, all in.

If the truth could be told it would but it can’t. It just can’t.
But really…would you want it to?

Hell of a deal, missing out on a swell trip, but I can surely
wait, go much later as reservations are not accepted, but
natural, and earned with lifetime of experience, cancelled
only by faith – thankfully without any tacked-on fees.

Questions, so many questions, about his return; will
he need a pickup, or just grab a cab? Wonder what he’ll
bring me for a souvenir, if he’ll have anything to declare.

I wonder about such a long trip – I’m no where near
ready to travel, myself – but when I do, should I bring a
stack of postcards or just buy them in the gift shop?
What about stamps? How frequent is the mail?

I’ll write something different, unique. Or so I say now.

‘Having wonderful time – wish you were here lies…’