I meant to make it all the way to Maine
Rachel Carson wasn’t silent and Spring late in coming, bowed to snowstorm
It was my intention to honor her gain
against the shoreline whisky
watching puffins cast their rainbow beaks into plump flipper against whitening ravage
Southwest Airlines, didn’t clean their luncheon trays or provide succor for thin air
even liquid diets can give you Noro viruses if they’re in the mood
I didn’t make it to Maine, head down a witches bowl beset the route
Salem, swallowed me whole
all the girls I didn’t know, made rings around my posie
And orange muffins (who puts oranges in muffins? The black eyed tobacco doll?) 
the compassionate Russian doctor at the Ready Clinic gave me a yellow bottle, not the best color choice, to keep from retching
She said, spend your thirties on a cruise ship, I fell In love with the ocean, and the lonely women casting their nets, and she gave me a deep wink, collegial and far from coy,  who knew tucked In CVS lay Friends Of Dorothy?
In truth it was the itinerary of a coward
seeking impossible retreat
for she who doesn’t like socializing, will never marry and make content a popularist
or name a pond, or build a thatch or blow down their tindered heart like a stale match
It doesn’t hurt on occasion, to be kicked about like a straw stuffed doll
or ignored on the shelf, when reluctance
bids you leave
the party for a long and wounded road
made cool with first snow, faintly storing fantasy
of Maine and the green and the green and the green