"Snow messes with time. Have
you noticed that? Especially
at the poles."
I said,
"That's amazing.
I like that.
You should write a
poem about that."
Stephanie said,
"You can't steal my
idea!"
I said,
"I said you should
write a poem!"
She said,
"You won't be late
for work,
because the snow."
And I said,
"I'll steal
the loop of time created
by the snow, and I'll
stop at Sheetz for
a decaf coffee."
She said,
"You said something
about an ice sheet?"
And I described
how I would scoop snow
into my pan and light
a can of napalm
and sit on the ice sheet
boiling
and make decaf from
instant powder,
and none of this would
affect my arrival time.
And then the connection
was cut off,
and I kept driving
in snow time,
and when I arrived,
I was the only person there,
and no one would ever
be on time, or
even late.
(Shared with permission of S.R., who said it doesn't rhyme and I forgot the part about compasses, which was the best part. Also she supplied a line by T.W., "The longest distance between two points is time," which is a paraphrase that for the purpose of the half-stolen half-poem fits better than the original, "Time is the longest distance between two places.")
