Terminal A27 (November 2006)

(Even though not all love lasts forever, if you write about it you can have a poem that will...)

In terminal A27
my chest contracts
to an uncanny tightness,
while i picture you
driving in direction
that is decidedly
not towards me.
There's a string tied
to the end of my little finger
getting longer and longer
measuring the growing
space between us.
I am temporarily blind,
my eyes see only
replayed scenes of our bodies
together.
There is a growing puddle
around me,
because the drain on the
bottom of my left foot has been
pulled out,
suddenly,
and I am spilling out
onto the ugly blue carpet.
My foot is asleep,
and then my hand,
and soon my whole body
is tingly,
prickly with inertia.
I can't even move to
go after you.

Before I catch up to myself
I am looking out the window,
watching your state fall away
into the deepening night.
The lights get smaller and
fainter and
fewer
and when the last one disappears
I am gone.
The perfect sad song is playing.
I pop the pressure in my ears,
close my eyes,
and attempt to convince myself
that it will be soon
when we say hello again,
and that the string around my little finger
is not so terribly long
and taut.