My friend Josette, whom I love dearly, has (and she would say this herself) the worst luck when it comes to travel; weird and wonderful dramas abound whenever she tries to head off somewhere. This month she went to Berlin and her suitcase didn’t arrive. In fact it took an age to arrive; most of her trip to be precise. When we spoke about it I said I’d love to be able to speak with objects when things like this happen and started to speculate about what the suitcase would say about its journey…and sat down to write this silly poem. 

Ah Columbus, you never had these issues
your bag rode high on the tumultuous seas
it couldn’t get lost inside pesky air fissures.

As for me, we’d said goodbye at old Gatwick
she’d seen me off and gone straight to the bar
(I knew the routine, it was all pretty slick).

Stuck with a tag that was bound for Berlin,
imagine my surprise when I arrived in…
Lisbon, Tallin then finally Turin!

All those unexpected places and curious faces
I was vulnerable, alone, weighed with the guilt
that I had all her clothes, her make-up, shoelaces.

Oh for a pair of legs to get to the gate
I’d not have left it to the hapless air staff
I’d not have left it to God and to bloody old fate

but as it was I was stuck
(just another holiday drama)
all the while knowing she’d feel like a schmuck.

Josette, if I’d could I wouldn’t have seen
(this my apology to you, my blonde queen)
all those old cities and silly bland bits in between

because quite honestly it was all a bit boring, mundane
I didn’t see anything at all to be fair, to be sure
just me and the dreary old back of a plane.

I thought of you often, you must forgive me my sin
that I left you with just the clothes you stood in
I came when I could, even if it turned out
that I was too late; you were already leaving
that beautiful city we all call Berlin.