Camping Out (a poem about letting that shit go)

The final sip of cold coffee

from my travel mug

signals

absolutely nothing

ordinarily

a moment

just short of noon and nothing more -

a bitter quarter ounce

of home

a mile marker

a nourishing residue of the unachievable aspirations

of morning on the road

a humbling click of the lid closed

until caffeine and comfort come again

& it occurs to me

flashes before my

highway consciousness

that each sip

is little but a portend

of the promise of the next and the next and the ne

but now no more

although the day goes on long and satisfying around a campfire

we conjured up

like sorcerers

nurtured

like shepherds

watched

like television