Pioneers

The Starbucks cup informs me
that I'm a Pioneer in using recycled cups.
My mind floods with images
of the nearish future,
Where kids in silly outfits
get out of a flying bus,

heading to a museum devoted to Pioneers.
One room just for Lewis and Clark,
They press their faces against the glass of
Dioramas depicting men in raccoon hats,
huddled over a fire in the Rockies,
their plastic fingers tinged blue
for effect.

Another room devoted
to the rest of the settling of the West,
Filled with photos of men and women
in front of Conestogas, and off to the left,
the graves of babies dead from Typhoid.

And to another room, where they enter
one of those old-timey Atlantis Shuttles,
and read a copy of the speech Nixon would have given
if their shuttle exploded up in the atmosphere,
or their landing vehicle couldn't take off,
leaving Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong to
die on the cold moon, all alone.

Lastly, to a room devoted to We,
the Pioneering Starbucks customer,
who braved $3.95 and the price of gas
for a cup of sludgy sugar.
And their teacher laughs and says
"Luckily, these pioneers never suffered a scalping."