Not a Vacation

This is being
away from home
whether you want
to be or not,

being in the air
with nothing
between you and
a 20,000 foot drop

to death except
some aluminum
and a little wind.
This is sleeping

in strange beds,
lugging the ball
and chain of jet lag
through every meal

and conversation.
This is fast food
at the ferry dock,
picnics with children

you do not know,
and the sheer
strangeness of being
alone on the patio

while relatives you
no longer know talk
about the good old
days when you were

a lad of eighteen
and didn’t have a pot
to piss in or a window
to throw it out of.

Christopher Thomas has been publishing poems in for many years. His work has appeared in Amelia, Bay Windows, Chiron Review, Duckabush Review, Evergreen Chronicles, The James White Review, New York Native, Paramour Magazine, and others. Some of my work has been anthologized.
Lone Willow Press will publish his collection, The Smell of Carnal Knowledge, sometime in late 2009.
Creighton University maintains a web site on Nebraska writers. You can find additional data concerning my writing career, bibliography, photo, etc., if you’re interested. It can be accessed at http://Mockingbird.creighton.eduNCW/Thomas.htm