Two Bucks and A Ticket to Hell

My mane was flowing with the wind,
a week out of digging Mt. Rainier's "Wonderland Trail,"
had blisters on my fingers
and terrors on my brain,
was waiting for a Greyhound
with two bucks and a ticket to hell.

Then:
funkadelic sofas,
the unspoken gigolo,
stoner drama,
bags of snow,
admissions tests,
colorful skirts in literature class,
8 glasses of champagne at Andronicus's feast,
down at the pawnshop with my father's watch,
brand new oil paint tools,
my first opening,
the shock and the sugar,
polite essays on Twain and James,
the beginning of the Iraq War,
our massive, chanting dance down Main Street,
face to face with fascist riot shields,
torturously tight hand-cuffs,
Abu Ghraib here in America,
then back on the green campus,
exile on the library's third floor,
we all tossed our hats in the air...
me with a Zen fury.

Now I've been pounding the pavement
in soles worn thin,
and I'm not a cog they can slide in the machine,
can't say things are so swell,
but there's something magic about
two Sacagaweas and a ticket to hell.