So I made it all the way back to the Rental Car Return and then I used a piece of my kittyhaul wage to stock up, on salsa and socks, on naproxen and niacin. None of that is very exciting, but this is. While finally coming through on the promise of updated spillage, this time on the posts from the trip, I came across the first poetry fragment I’ve written in a year or two. Normally I wouldn’t even bother publishing such a frail stick of verse. But that it exists somehow, that makes me glad.

It was written during the happiest part of the trip, on the way back, but not yet running late. It’s a tangential reflection of all those thoughts about escaping the working class only to find oneself back in it, and okay with that.

FLOCK OF GREENVILLE

I pedal my bike down the side road
Little chunks of mud rising up to spatter my good pants.

I’m thinking about Ezra Pound
and certain successful posts I once made on SlashDot.

The radio is talking about a job fair for radio.

It’s true that I’ve lost my mojo,
but it’s not a kind of mojo I want back.

No, now I just want to pedal better
To keep rolling
Not get stuck
Now I want the wind
and it wants me
back.