" Lindbergh'ing "
With you in Florence,
its hard to talk to people here
and keep them from detecting
how much I miss you.
Well. At 4 am, (and nine hours
later for you), I drive to the airfield.
I park at the depot across from it,
between two trucks, dusty brown brutes
that seem at half-watch over the yard.
Wind blows through the long grass
that lines the landing strip.
In the dark it is hard to tell
what parts are moving. I relax
my eyes until all the grass looks
fixed, and now it is the gravel
that seems to move, seems to tumble
through the low, dark space of the strip,
locked in by edges, like words
trapped inside the walls
of a confession booth.
It occurs to me that maybe
I am trespassing. But my car
is out of sight from the street,
and the line of benches looks
safe enough. So I sit, and look down
at the parked planes--
They seem so small,
just small enough for the sky
not to shake them off,
like how ticks can sneak
across a dog's back. I gaze
up past the black glass of the tower,
at the light on top. With each spin,
it thrusts another blue stab at the night,
which recedes for just a second,
and then grows back.
Watching it reminds me
of phone calls to you, from a booth,
how each time we talk it feels like
momentary jolts, bright shudders
across the cold, unswimmable
Atlantic. Tiny channels open
for our words, and then collapse,
which makes me wish for a set
of jumper cables, a book on flying,
and a pair of wire-cutters, for that thin fence
along the runway that seems
far too weak of a precaution.
© 2003 Graeme Mullen
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