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by Gabriel Ricard

On the plane ride back from Vegas
she falls in love with an older businessman
from Florida. They manage to get in a quick kiss
before she meets her fiancé in Norfolk.
She accepts his marriage proposal
on the cab ride back to their new one-bedroom
sauna on the roof of a much better building.

The driver smiles like a man
who doesn’t want to ever go home.

Either he knows everything,
or he’s just a smartass with tinfoil gloves
and a Ouija board.

If that’s the case then you can probably imagine
all the pigeons flying around his room,
wondering why the windows are covered in finger paint.

Or he’s just a perfectly reasonable fanatic of some kind.

No one’s here to judge,
imagine the cops are never going to come
or stop in a strange town to ask a strange woman
for directions. Not because you don’t know where to go,
but because you don’t want to get there,
and you’ll take anything that might put you
underground for two more weeks.

Baby, hey, come on now,
don’t cry to make up for lost time.
We’ve all tried to tell ourselves
that we’re never going to fall for a physical sales pitch
ever again.

We’ve waited on ideas,
and then waited for one we might like more.

Wild ones dwindle into single digits
by the thirties, and it becomes a game
for the kind of youth that can wait in line
forever, and believe for days
that it leads to something glorious.

They would probably march in protest for those pigeons,
believe the woman at the airport is only trying to find herself
and name their children after what stuns their tender hearts
during a rousing meal of alphabet soup.

Spend too much money.
Try to ban snow from touching their front lawn.

Watch.
The trees will move closer and closer to their homes,
and they won’t know a thing about it until it goes live online.

Betcha it’ll be the driver who records it.
Anybody can film the way
their favorite outlet mall looks too much like Ancient Rome.

The barbarians spend thousands a year on haircuts.

02/10/2012

Posted on 02/10/2012
Copyright © 2024 Gabriel Ricard

Member Comments on this Poem
Posted by V. Blake on 02/11/12 at 04:17 PM

That first stanza is a kick to the back of the head. I would think that after all the years of doing this, you'd have just a little bit of trouble getting your leg up that high, but you really show no signs of settling. Excellent as always.

Posted by Jody Pratt on 02/11/12 at 11:11 PM

You really know how to take a reader for a (cab) ride.

Posted by Meghan Helmich on 02/14/12 at 01:49 PM

I really like that final image.

Posted by Anya Kaats on 02/23/12 at 01:08 AM

yeah, wow, that first stanza totally punches you in the face. i thoroughly enjoyed this.

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