I read a tech update this week about smart luggage designed to contact the traveler when the luggage is lost.

At first, that impressed me. After some thought, I became disappointed. I don’t want to know when my luggage is lost. I pretty much know that now with dumb luggage. The hint is when it was where I am, then it’s not.

Luggage, if you are smart luggage, don’t text your lost state. Make it transparent to me. I need one less thing to worry about when traveling.

Track my location via the phone you’re texting. Apps provide that data now. Then, using your built-in GPS, close the gap. Find your way back to me.

Version 2.0: Once you’re at my side again, activate a snuggle function and give my leg a reassuring rub, and maybe make a soft purring sound come from your smart luggage speakers.

Version 3.0: Extend your telescopic lips to my ear and whisper a sweet, “I love you,” while you’re there. Maybe an, “I can’t wait until we’re alone in the room”?

Version I-Want-This-One: Learn my destination coordinates and go on ahead without me. Meet me there. Unpack yourself. Let me text you if I’m lost. I’m smart that way.

There is a romance to travel, an excitement with the new. There is also a deep satisfaction in being home. That’s a place that’s becoming more and more elusive these days.

Enough rambling. On with the show…

(As is too-often the case, today’s Poetry Friday structure is in 5/7/5.)

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Wake Me Up When We’ve Arrived

‘Smart’ luggage will text
When it gets lost,” they tell me.
Wake me up when it

. . .

Knows to stay with me
Or learning coordinates
Waits for me instead

. . .

On large beds spread
Folded open neatly pressed
Hung over arranged

. . .

My self-packed journeys
Past closed locked empty baggage
Claims and carousels

. . .

Overhead bins leave
Room for hollow fantasies
Ample dreaming space

. . .

Wake me up when it
Knows when unsatisfied I
Long to stay longer

. . .

Make us feel better
Our shapely dressed flesh unpacked
Pressed sweet to another

. . .

Long for this new place
Drop empty stuff we carry
Carousels waiting

. . .

Home

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