Airport Thoughts
Image from Weird Islands by Jean de Bosschère (1921)
Airport Thoughts
Elena Gabor
a poem
Comfortable shoes, hoodies, earbuds,
Peoplewatching with prolonged, impolite gazes.
What journeys are we all on?
We have tickets to smiles, palm trees, backyards, gods, roots, warm hands…
I’m waiting, with no ticket to your town
anytime soon.
I know it’s a good place to live,
among the last remaining.
The mountains are still there
like they were in my childhood.
The medieval clock tower is there too,
but time has stopped
near the large gravitational mass of you and my memories.
I fantasize about telling you what I think,
About winning for once.
Why is it that in your presence what I say is worth less?
My words rained on your waterproof shoulders
Like you had your raincoat on all the time,
Your untrusting eyes searching the air under an imaginary hat brim.
You are not the Sun anymore,
You are barely Pluto!
Your feet are elephantine now,
You can’t leap as fast
to deliver your punishment.
Your fingers are fat,
heavy with the habit of pounding,
unable to grab with finesse,
but still able to break a lip.
Who are you now?
Hell happened to your soul
and I’m not sure you know it.
We met so you could
make me
and then
leave me
wondering
in this airport,
waiting at the gate.
Where
in the world
am I going?
ELENA GABOR, Ph.D., teaches and researches in the field of organizational communication at Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois. Her research has spanned professional groups such as wildland firefighters, classical musicians, and immigrant women engineers. She is the co-editor of Immigrants and Meanings of Work: Communicating Life and Career Transitions (Peter Lang, 2016).
dePICTions volume 4 (2024): Victimhood
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