Challenging Poetry

in between

I.

One morning, I stepped into an airport,
and after thirteen hours, three planes, and
two more airports,
I emerged in another country, and it was morning again.

II.

Travelers exist in between. Planes, trains,
automobiles—their denizens
careen off each other in passing.
sharing secrets and fears,
and then abandoning those new relationships
for real life again.

III.

Once, while on a road trip,
we slept in Dallas, then drove
all day, passing and being passed
by the same cars,
nearly running out of gas twice, and
after eight hours of oil fields
and tumbleweeds, we were still in Texas.

IV.

I saw a movie once,
set on a train meandering through Europe,
and the conductor asked for passports
twice in two minutes
while traveling through Luxembourg.

That never happens on a plane.
The flight attendant never asks for passports
and stamps: Canada, Greenland, Russia, Ireland
as we pass through different airspace.

Of course, the train
rolls over sovereign soil, its passengers
in contact, however brief,
with the land, passing over invisible
boundaries made of politicking and
imagination without moving their feet or
changing their conversation.

Is the air less sovereign, then?

V.

Once, while on a train,
I met a girl
and, after hours of conversation,
drifted away. I dream her life,
or maybe,
she dreams me.

line count: 40
April 16: plane, train, or automobile