Quantcast
PDF

poem


by Evan Brown


Easter morning in the airport: 


1.
The kids are boarding like bunnies,
with chocolate stained paws,
blood sugar already in the air,
and newly plucked pink and yellow 
tulip buds behind their ears.
I want to tell them it's still too early,
you have to let those buds grow out 
of their beginning stage
and have a chance to really develop, 
just like so many other things,
or they won't stand a chance
in the long run.
But they've all turned in unison 
to their book diversions. 
Nothing is less fragile than a travel paperback.

2.
Easter morning in the airport. 
And I'm not sure where anyone is going.
All the destination signs are hidden behind eggs,
which make me want to eat 
a dozen sandy, sugary Peeps,
until my coated teeth are glassy-colored
snow-capped mountain tops.
I want to be obnoxious and bare them 
at the grown ups as I walk the wrong way 
on the walk way to make everyone understand
despite my showing signs and scars of variegation, 
I am basically still ten or twelve years old.

3.
From the PA: 
There will be mass in the chapel 
at ten am
on the mezzanine level
at the airside terminal 
all are welcome.
I wonder: Who looks for god here? 
And if  heaven exists, can we bring
more than three ounces of liquid?

4.
Easter in the airport. 
They're putting out floral centerpieces
in the Fair Price shops.
Women with perfume samples 
that stink of roses, 
old, like the end of February.
But tulips are my talisman 
for an eternal April.

5.
It's Easter. And I'm boarding my plane home.
In front of me a woman walks
down the narrow corridor with a yellow bouquet,
a free gift from the rose perfume lady
for buying something--anything.
In that confined space, 
the smell gently overwhelms. 
I  find myself hoping she'll be 
the window to my aisle,
so I can free associate some more.
But she sits ten rows behind me and I am jealous. 
She is carrying  a souvenir of spring. 
Which is something few people understand
Endcap