(for Lindsey and Chuck, bound for England)

Clouds stacked up for miles ahead
like planes waiting to land—

or flat-bottomed sailboats scudding
across endless blue—

I wanted to follow where they were
headed, but the road turned southward,

and the flotilla continued east,
and as so often happens, I was left

longing for the direction I could
not travel, over thataway—

no idea why it beckoned me,
just knowing that it had—

and how much I yearned to go.