Charlie Idaho
The name that could be given to adventurers
Mercenaries
And super heroes
But there is no rescue here
If it could have been anything
Then it really would have been something
A case of distance standing in the way
Of undiscovered kismet
Days have turned into years
Life has happened to us both
The uncorked bottles of sparkling conversation
Long emptied, with no plan to open more

But Charlie Idaho is not the name of a genie
He can’t live in bottles
Or grant wishes
Charlie Idaho is a super hero
But there is no rescue here
The mundane and the monotony overtake us
A border of unseen Kryptonite between us
And we become another name in a newsfeed
Another text that almost got sent
Maybe never to be anything more than a moment of Auld Lang Syne

But sometimes Charlie Idaho wears a cape
And he flies through my mind
At traffic lights
On swing sets in near empty parks
Sometimes at night
Just before sleep erases the day
And I know
That if it could have been anything
Then it really would have been something
Taking on the world
And facing the mundane and the monotony
Together

I look to the skies sometimes
And I wonder if he believes that Cindy Indiana
Might also be the name of a super hero
And that those borders of Kryptonite
Will become nothing more
Than lines on a map
A road trip
A bus ticket not yet purchased
And that maybe someday
There could be a rescue here

– Lucinda L. Flanary