6788. I THEN LEARNED MY MAGELLAN

I THEN LEARNED 

MY MAGELLAN

To circumnavigate the globe you simply go straight.

Compass. Sextant. Astrolabe. I think all of this, anyway.

It was all a dream, by the way, and I did think I knew the

fellow, but everyone was following him with enthusiasm

too great and grand for what I knew of him. 'The Lecher of 

Keansburg,' they used to call him : one of those streets by

the Club Miami, where he'd bag a new girl, and often her

mother too, nearly every night. Amazing touch, those

monstrous fingers. Then he went back south, and last

I knew he was selling used cars in New Orleans, or maybe

Texas  -  so many other things have intervened.

-

To circumnavigate the globe you simply go straight. The

lesson book said that, but then it added the caveat 'beware

of obstacles along the way. It is not all water.' Had it said,

say, 'beware of popsicles along the way...' that wouldn't

have been so bad  -  they're only water anyway but in a 

different form. Things change, and then they hardly matter.