Mini-Europe

I will die small

A tourist in my own life

Face-planted in mini-river

 

I will die in 6 inches of chlorine

At the crest of a water slide spitting

Me into the words

 

Of a foreign anthem

In the bed of a mini-gondola

A middle-aged man serenading me in period dress

 

So beautifully I drift

Into words on a mini-grave

I will die a photograph

 

An immutable figurine

In this lousy t-shirt

I will die a t-shirt

 

Like so many t-shirts before me

In the shadow of mini-Mount Vesuvius

I will die small

 

To a laugh track

In this brand new flag

That's two sizes too big

 

Return me to the closest department store and bury me

Where the women's section meets the men's

I will dye a t-shirt

 

To look like the withering 

surface of the Acropolis and fire

That t-shirt

 

From a t-shirt gun

So beautifully across mini-blue sky

Into mini-grandstands

 

Where a man spills

A foreign beer

Onto his neighboring nation

 

In order to catch the flying t-shirt and give it to a little boy

Who smiles like a mini-flag

And assures everyone "The Euro is strong"

 

Thanks to the tourists

Circling Mini-Big Ben

Ala National Lampoon's European Vacation

 

I will die in period dress

Tradition scrolling

So beautifully down my face

 

I will die a little boy

At the river's edge

Under a wave of of pre-recorded laughter

 

Dying for a photograph

My arm around the sky

The mini-grandstands do The Wave

 

Every figurine smiles in matching anthems

Spilling foreign wars

Onto the backs of the rows in front