I miss a plane mid winter

in an airport midway,

with not enough time to change

and more than enough time to think.

 

I trudge to a snack bar

to be comforted by a grilled burger,

bacon and Swiss cheese,

turned slowly by a tired woman in her fifties.

 

A man in blue uniform rests a broom

against the deli case,

sweeps a cup of coffee from her hand,

lands it smoothly on a round table top.

 

“O, whatzit all about anyway, Agnes?”

he booms over the tarmac of his java,

glancing meanly at me

looking to him for a clue.

 

I hurry to the last flight of the day,

stuck between his question and a heavy man

yacking about pumps and plastic pipe

all the way to Cincinnati.

 

Even in my dream just before LaGuardia,

the question needles me in the side,

heckles me, bets ten to one,

I’ll never figure it out.

 

 

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