STEP #23 - LA COSA NELLA LETTERATURA
"THE TICKET AGENT"
Like any merchant in a store
Who sells things by the pound or score,
He deals with scarce perfuncoty glance
Small pass-keys to the world's Romance.
He takes dull money, turns and hands
The roadways to far distant lands.
Bright shining rail and fenceless sea
Are partners to his wizardry.
He calls off names as if they were
Just names to cause no heart to stir.
For listening you'll hear him say
“. . . and then to Aden and Bombay . . .”
Or “. . . 'Frisco first and then to Nome,
Across the Rocky Mountains—Home . . .”
And never catch of voice to tell
He knows the lure or feels the spell.
Like any salesman in a store,
He sells but tickets—nothing more.
And casual as any clerk
He deals in dreams, and calls it—work!
"NO TICKET"
His clothes were filled with tickets to past events
so he could hear the orchestra tuning up again
and the airplane landing near the diving cliffs
in Acapulco where the boys leapt into the known
unknown in Speedo suits. All travel was continuous.
Time was ceaseless in his pockets. The piano recital
played forever in its aftermath, its tides of notes
surging and retreating according to a lunar mood
for which the children had no table. The matinee
was screened over and over in the balcony of
his thought, specifically the part where the hero
realized he’d been pursuing her and was being
pursued in turn as they reached the precipice
of no regret. And then the fiery night called out
to them and said no ticket would be needed.
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