At Gate 17

An old woman in an airport, sunken cheeks, turns toward a window where sky comes in and

we can see metal villages take off, glide down. Her face suggests she knows how society got this frenzied,

worried, driven to vacate. She may know too where each of us is going, returning from, and why airports reek of grief—

her face is a rare manuscript of grief. Her years spiral slowly in memory like a galaxy. Her attachments drift aboard

a listing barge on a harbor without a city, on a coast discernable only to her blue eyes. She must be

awed sometimes to think before a mirror that her eyes have come all this way with her, interpreted

whole life. She qualifies for pre-boarding, is among those who may need more time. She declines the privilege,

waits. She folds her hands. All answers she knows ennoble her. Age rests on her, a coronation.