((I screwed up and posted the wrong version of the third break. Here’s the right one. Yeah, I’m anal)).
This flight, overbook and forget:
lost in the line and seven hours laid
over in Madrid, where the food
is saffron scent mixed with grease
and American coffee. I don’t speak
a word of Spanish, ask When
will the plane come?
Snowstorm in Boston, ice
and planes grounded; I’m here
for the duration.
Eleven hours, and I can’t sleep,
Iberian night coming as shuttered
storefronts of Starbucks. The barista
smiles as I curl on plastic seats,
asks something with tilted wolf-grin,
eyes up and down my body, crawling
slow and catching every inch.
Well-buttocked, his leather jacket
on the bedpost, he shouts, at release,
the name of a saint.
Sunday morning, the country has gone
to Mass. During their transubstantiation,
I dress, find the route from his apartment
back to breakfast on an airport bench–
café con leche y churros; it arrives,
steaming and cinnamon, as the speakers
echo to life and call for me to come:
The weather has changed; my plane
leaves at eleven and, ticket-bound,
I must follow it home.