Three Poems at the Airport

Poem I

When the novelty of flight wore off, we were still
boys. We would go to the airports and watch
for great pilots. We would expect wings and cards
and all we got were over salted pretzels.

We watched movies about Lindbergh and Earhart
but none were so glorious anymore. We packed
our things in smaller and smaller suit cases
and we took off our clothes. We threw away

millions of lighters and pocket knives each year
or we just mailed them to ourselves. The Hazmat crews
allegedly picked up trash cans of them but really
who knows, they just disappeared. We listened

to a woman read the time out loud at intervals.
We followed rules and regulations and we washed
our hair less. We used all our money buying sandwiches
and bottles of water at the airport. We wanted to eat

but we wanted to visit more and that drove us to work.
We were just boys and girls but really we knew
what we were. We were witnessing collapsing
excitement and shrinking innovation

and the life jackets underneath the seat cost five dollars
and only accepted major credit cards.

Do You Think that Flying for a Blind Person is like Flying for a Seeing Person?

Here I am looking out the window
of a plane, thousands of feet above
the tiny ground. I can see the pilots

checking gauges, looking at the wings,
their lips moving because their talking
to each other. I can wonder

if there is something wrong with the plane
based on their expressions, their movements,
their pauses. I can watch the horizon
and see how we are descending.

I can worry myself and I can infer
that we will be crashing soon and I can see
how quickly the ground is coming at us.
I can fix myself to die and I can try to know

the exact moment of death, and I can realize
that sight is just the hindrance of anticipation,
that the blind will die too, but they will not see it
coming and therefore they will not worry about it.

Months and Months of Moons and then a Sun

In the evenings there was darkness
and in the mornings there wasn’t
but we still worked like normal
and made love in the alcoves
like birds constructing nests.

Seven hundred years later, we thought,
all this will not matter, but it did not revoke
our hopes. It did not make us eat less
turkey or drive less or buy differently
but actually increased the amount of hugs

we gave and the amount of scarves
we knitted and we even started playing
records again. It isn’t such a feat to build
skyscrapers but to walk on two legs
and to talk with a tongue

and to record music and carry it with you
like a weapon or carry it with you like the pen
of a famous writer in his jeans, these
are the redefinitions that should plaster the walls
between history and future, these

are the graffiti of the heart and the missing advertising
from the PR department in heaven.