Terminal 5
Poem by RIG Anonymous
Terminal 5
—JFK
by RIG Anonymous
Jacked on thought thanks to Turkish coffee, coming from Istanbul.
Passengers wrap around from baggage claim
from one floor to the next.
My sweet wife’s voice sours when the last leg of our flight is canceled,
imagining our preemie twins sleeping
on the dirty tile of Terminal 5.
She’s in the face of the ticketing agent and security, in Russian
and in English, reminding them that America is still a free country,
that we have rights.
Bypassing the layover we take a rental down I-95
in the middle of the night. It’s just six states away,
though I haven’t slept in fifty hours.
As we ride the upper deck of George Washington Bridge,
despite the evening stench of dismissal,
and of skunk, and of sewage fields,
despite our neck hairs standing to attention due to radioactivity
at 3am over the Hudson, on down the road
my family’s good energy returns.
