Regarding falling asleep
waiting for my group to be called
to enter the tunnel
that would have taken me
to 26D—
I nodded off, the plane left
without me
in my neck pillow
like someone in a hospital bed
completely unaware, waiting to be fixed,
indifferent to everything.
And perhaps what makes us miss things
is that once in a while
we want to stop getting what we’re paying for,
a small Dostoyevskian mutiny
like buying a clear plastic box of salad
that tastes old and poisonous
then throwing the whole thing in the trash.
Our lives are a series of
debts and payoffs that feel barely
tolerable. And anyway
whenever I walk across the sky
to stand in line for the bathroom
I think, finally,
I am just like a ghost
trying to distract myself
from boredom
and hysteria. It’s a kind of
holy moment
that unfills
anger.