The Travelogue

We have been everywhere,
They purred, implicitly.
They’d been from India,

Had moved to Australia,
Done well, apparently,
And now ticked off countries

Like a grocery list—
The items already
In the cart, the ones left.

Midnight in Borneo,
Along the Temburong,
They let the others know

How few places they had
Yet to go. Europe, done.
The Americas, done.

The English-speaking world,
Every patch of it, done.
China, done. Japan, done.

The insects descended
On their lamps and liquor.
The hardy travelers

Didn’t care where they were,
Except that it wasn’t
Somewhere they’d ever been.

Finally they turned in,
Drunk as sin. The river
Never heard them again.