In the departure lounge I am
as in any other waiting room: meat.
Yellow mask of normal breathing,
floppy shield of in-flight magazine.
Prayer is an inflatable slide;
love the tremor of a stranger’s knee.
The stag do bays at the wriggling germs
of pools in ordinary houses
but in olive groves and grand cafes
the days persist as days.
But in those days’ persistence is
the difference of the air,
new linen dress a temperate flower
translucent in the solar roar.
And flying home after being unknown,
the sun hitting you at all those angles,
flies in the market, being chastised
for using the wrong door –
cold scald of default sunshine,
clouds ape substance in strained air –
from this height I see it was life,
and this too: wet slate roofs glitter,
the craft leans to the old coast lovingly;
the wheel strike on the runway
plants a thrill at the root of me
where I am, as at any other portal:
tearing through white corridors
to kiss the stubble of the fields.
INSTANT NOODLES 