The Fugitives
Greg Huteson

A wrinkled dress shirt, blue, white stripes,
tossed off onto the swayback bed
while next to it a penguin gripes,
an actual penguin not some toy.

The gray-haired jokester shuts the drawer
and settles to the packing of his bag
with books, assorted shirts, and more.
The while he mutters to the wall.

Head up, chest out with steady glance
as if still on parade or bored,
as if the packing were a chance
occurrence, not urgently required.

The black-marked door would open soon,
the stairs enclose both man and bird
in haste to flee the too warm room
in search of icehouse or ice cream.

The driver threatens them for thrills
as they seek their cool desire
and flee propriety and bills
that must be paid then promptly filed.

But ice cream found at chilly last
is not a nostrum for their ills.
The penguin sags, the old man scats
from the drugstore’s bright chrome stool.

The chocolate drops still on their shoes,
the crumbs still on the seabird’s face,
they bum a cig and form a ruse
to hop a train to Kathmandu.