wanderlost

she flicks the map
that takes up one-third of
wall space.
on her desk, there’s a
spinning globe: sometimes
she taps it to set it rotating.

unfocuses her eyes and lets the world
blur past.

she makes a list,
writing alphabetically,
reverse-alphabetically
and flips it around again.

scrambles the order, calls up
online travel literature.

in the evening she
crams in language, makes
flashcards of grammar.

she’ll go next year,
she decides. she doesn’t want
to go quite yet.

three years pass,
then five.
she drinks tea at home
and imagines being
elsewhere.

there’s an itch to get going
and she doesn’t know how.when she does leave
the world blurs around her
and she decides the only
cure
is to keep moving.