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.