ON DISPLAY
.
.
Early on, this was easily the worst flight I’ve endured
A stupid dispute at the airport bar
Ended abruptly with me surprising us both
When my agitation rose to heights enough to
Make me stand & storm w/no name my way
Out into the airport annex walkway
Toward the gate, we had agreed to depart
Together, or now, her alone.
She had been emptying her new roomier purse she bought
So that all my medicines could ride with us inside the cabin
& not at risk to be lost inside lost luggage.
.
Her cell phone may or may not have tinkled
somewhere in the kitchen sink of that bag
She was now emptying
3 maybe 2 gallon freezer bags
Of my pills on the open table.
.
In this story, I told her to hurry.
The pills on display
embarrassed me,
Alarmed me, condemned me
Big time.
(I suppose I hated that
strangers might see & say I’m sickly
Or old. I”m not sickly nor old.)
,
I asked her again, troubledly,
As she fumbled her way.
She warned me not to mention it again
Or I could carry my own.
“But it IS upsetting me”
& with that, she pushed all the pills my way.
All he could do was stood up and go.
.
We weren’t talking until after we eventually met up again
For lining in aisles, late in the gate lobby, to finalize that something
That felt right but was wrong,
Not to fly along.
“I can do this alone”, she would only say there
I was accompanying her to N.J. for closure,
& to spread her father’s ashes on some bay there.
.
The kindly older couple across the aisle
Seemed amused by my apparent predicament,
Though they know nothing of not wanting to go,
Through this (already) tedious, torturous two days.
They probably didn’t know of my other predicaments
But guessed by my face that I hadn’t flown or wouldn’t fly Spirit again,
They guessed on my height(?), and then. “Will you again?”
I burned to turn to my too quiet travel partner, with a sigh
and taunt, “I don’t know, will I?”
.
The first five minutes
Into our ascent
We were thrown and throttled &
For the first time in decades
I was not calm
I told my own god I needed more time &
Asked for strength, always strength &
patience
To wrench out this weekend
At least.
.
I paid an Atlantic City boardwalk palm reader double
To only tell her psychically that the past months have been difficult
She did her job next, what’s next.. “stubbornly trouble”