Next Stop

by Gretchen Tessmer

she’s read the brochure
scribbling nervous notes
in cramped margins—

any how town (to borrow the phrase)
any why bus stop
any what glows
any when wonder
any which spaceship
any where goes

“don’t think, just go!”

as they say
fortune favors the brave
and the grass must be greener
on the other side of space
those asteroid-sized monsters
that she’s read about
can’t be worse than the leviathans
of fear and indecision
all swimming and diving inside
the Olympic-sized pool
in her poor and aching head

they frolic, they keep themselves well-fed

her feet are rooted
her hands wringing
as the bus driver asks, again:
“Ma’am . . . are you coming?”

she grips that brochure
until it shreds

Gretchen Tessmer lives in the deep woods of the U.S./Canadian borderlands. She's published more than 100 short stories and poems in such venues as Nature, Bourbon Penn, Strange Horizons, Beneath Ceaseless Skies and F&SF.