Treatise on Travel

Crystalline fins litter the water near the pier

breaking the surface in mercurial schools

of shimmer on blue, as if the entire shoreline

has been overrun by alien toy skiffs.

I’ve never seen jellyfish like this,

tagged on the Coast Guard poster

as Velella velella—By-the-Wind Sailor,

born in left and right-sailing forms,

mirror images gusted around the ocean

in opposite directions. Drifting is the most

economical way for jellies to travel. Not like

the homesick shipping clerk who sent himself

to Texas in a cargo crate thinking it would be

cheaper than a plane seat. On a Florida flight

years ago, my parents dressed my sister

in baby clothes to skirt purchasing her ticket.

As soon as we taxied from the terminal,

my sister told anyone who would listen

that she was four years old. I want my own seat,

she said, and my own meal. Every story

refuses to be economical, is too heavy to carry

gracefully, limps its way off the luggage belt

to the parking lot. When they interviewed

the man in the crate, who stayed folded and quiet

for fifteen hours, he said, “I’m sitting there

thinking any minute they’ll notice

there’s somebody sitting inside this crate.

No one did.” Not like the guy who went over

Niagara Falls without anything but his clothes.

Imagine all the stunned honeymooners

looking over the railing as the smiling man

glides headfirst over that 180-foot cascade,

then pulls himself up from the water.

There are places too transcendent to inhabit.

There are more graceful ways to travel home.

When I drive cross-country, I do not

try anything miraculous. I follow

the triptych, trace pink lines with my fingers,

listen to the radio announcer advertise

a litany of goods in places too rural

for stores or papers: the carburetor

from an ’89 Buick Skylark, gently worn

size 6 women’s Keds. She reads the numbers

to call. We are all swept everywhere.

Sometimes we pulse. Sometimes we drift.

Despite a simple design, jellies

are well-equipped to capture food,

reproduce, and defend themselves.