Metrical Friday: ‘Are We There Yet’

Are We There Yet
By R. Virgil Ellis

you’d say, tired of our prompting
to see the world as you should:
train-thunder as we go under a trestle,
smiling face painted on a barn.
You’d even get bored looking for signs
that had the rare q, x, or z.
Are we there yet?
So we gave up telling you the miles
and just said, we’re closer, getting closer,
whenever you asked, so
you made it into a chant:
closer, closer, closer,
until, turning onto our road,
we joined in, and then
we all rocked in our seats,
making the old car bounce and sway,
closer, closer, closer.

(Via The Writer’s Almanac; thanks, Walker!)

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