Last Bus To Paradiso

Last Bus To Paradiso

I shall die, someday, on a tourist bus,
whose weary driver, bored
after three hundred thirty-four
trips to his particular wonder,
nods off for a nano-second
during sweet and lustful thoughts
of his girlfriend's luscious rump.

One day on the Transpeninsular two-laner,
Baja California Sur,
the speeding bus— broken seats,
open windows, swaying Virgin and all—
will hurtle to meet its twin head-on,
while passing uphill on a blind curve
with no third gear.

Or will the rear wheels slip and grab,
scrabbling furiously
in Norwegian mud as the driver guns
the engine, desperately and too late,
to escape our sudden sternward slide
into the freezing fingers
of Porsanger Fjord?

I think I would prefer
the Italian coast, where I'll make
a long, graceful, arcing plunge
from the brink of the Amalfi Drive
to join the bones
of some long-forgotten ancestor
who fished the deep blue waters
far below.

Published fall 2004 – Atlanta Review