I am always skeptical
when someone tells me,
you have to meet so and so
I just know
that you will like them
so when this last one
turned out as I expected
it wasn’t much of a surprise
for starters
he was already gone
by the time I arrived
by which I mean he was there
and not there
roaring drunk but
not in a good way
he came up to me
like we’d met before
and said through too big a smile
so the bug bit you, too
and thinking he was talking about
chlamydia
which has been going around
something awful
I said
no, man
I’m clean
and he said
no, man
the travel bug
I heard you’ve been runnin’
all over the world
and I laughed and said
oh, yeah
I suppose so
he smiled and said
yeah man
that travel bug…
there wasn’t much to say
after that
it’s just funny
how most people are a punchline
to a joke they’ll never know
when I left I was still
laughing
at it
at him
at the idea
travel bug
that’s cute
here I had always felt
it was more
of a fool’s quest
some deadly,
errant crusade
much less of a bug
much more a plague