A set of turnstiles
Each more elaborate
Than the last
Frisk and shrink us
Down to the smudgy gray
Passport photos we’ll resemble
When we’re dead.
Though we clutch our
Swaddled possessions,
In the hushed caverns of this map-less place :
We have Nothing to declare.
Duty free:
Awash in spirits
Some to drink, others to anoint.
All to blot out the anxious animal that is
Rank, jumbled, desperate to cling to dear Earth
Dear life.
A janitor rubs his astringent mop across the aisle,
leaving a gleaming absence.
When you lift off,
Green hills spreading below
it will be as if you have never existed.
{Your life vest is in a panel above your head.}
Then. Descending!
A crescendo in your ears as
Clouds peel away self-and the
Snow swept mountains range
All the way to the blinding haze
A curve that you pulls your heart
Up to your face, where it plays
A smile but also tears – where did those come from ?
– Oh yes: because you are not a prisoner, no
You are hurtling towards, not away
Splitting time atomic, supersonic
Just a fleet shadow across glaciers whose
Impossible brilliance braids into
Great rivers whose
Luminous code I can trace
Carving my way —
I, sky, water, rock —
Towards the delta, the ocean,
Salt and home.
At the gate
My feet are planted back
In my story:
Flowing with the thousands of other
Time traveling revenants
Customs braided into the thick rope that becomes
Our ‘final destination’.
Not dying, no:
Transported. Reinvented. Meta-morphed.
Ajar, self-same, bewildered:
I think of the child I let slip through my fingers
even as I rush towards the child that I still am.
