Thank You for the Invite - Poem

Thank you for the invite. (January 17, 2022)

Thank you for the invite.

Although the drive there was a frightening abyss,

The venture home was certainly not a miss.

Packing the car, I glimpsed the mountain views at last.

House after house and manicured courses I’d walked past.

Then mile after mile, the mountains proudly announced their existence.

But later, they shifted with insistence.

Mountains became hills and hills became coasters of asphalt and blindspots.

The thrill of the unknown, emphasized by fog to be fraught,

Princess Goes to the Butterfly Museum blaring its Kaleidoscopic dreams.

Flattening out, orchards appeared—scraggly branches in the pale, steely seams—

an eeriness pouring over the land until…

Rolling Fluorescent chartreuse hills covered in neon impatiens imbue a new thrill.

But all pale in comparison to the pearlescent, cotton candy waters beneath the 7-mile bridge, so perfect like delicious crullers.