Perhaps California

.

[I wrote this poem in 2023 in response to this news story. I suppose it's too late to sell it anywhere as the moment has passed. But I like parts of it enough I don't want it to go to waste.]

. 

Perhaps California has already fallen into the sea
sliced off by our recent hurricane
then sucked clear around to the other side by Florida’s.

Columbus didn’t sail from San Francisco to prove the world is round
as we all heard in second grade
but because he thought New York was closer than the eggheads said.

I don’t know how else to explain Bay Area schools
joining the Atlantic Coast athletic conference.
Well, I do have one more theory, speaking of eggheads.

The price of jet fuel has dropped to record lows
and science shows that air travel is the best way to prevent hurricanes
so let’s move our boys crosscountry

as often as we can we can as we
think we can think we can think we can,
and when they touch down to touchdown we’ll all know:

This is the world the Jetsons promised us.
This is our utopia where Snoop and Fat Joe are neighbors
and distance has no meaning.

A world where Atlantic is Pacific
and we all believe each other
rather than our own eyes.