They revamped the airport completely
Now it looks just like a nightclub
Everyone’s excited and confused
– They Might Be Giants, “Man It’s So Loud In Here”
Like the blown-batting memory of a headache
I know was there, can call to mind,
but cannot feel again,
I bundle and belt myself
into my aisle seat,
iPad pocketed, last text sent,
cradled in the memory of terror trickling
through my prescribed haze,
now just a waft of fluttering spore,
occasional, shaken out from shelves
by drops too sharp, jolts too long.
Otherwise, just the fading flash
of light striking a lake,
winking down in my own eyes,
a flare I barely know
how to see around the absence of.