It’s an erasure of stars across the noon sky, or the wolf
at the door saying, “No, really, I’m selling girl scout cookies.”
Or it’s more like the current thinking regarding the safest seat
on the airplane, which I’m hoping is 18A,
as I’m currently in the LaGuardia Airport at Gate 83.
It’s like how they say there’s this tide that lifts every boat,
but they never say that not everyone gets a boat.
It’s like family traditions, and not just the accidental kind,
like saying “golly jeepers” or failing economics class, including
the Hot Waitress Index, the Car Sales Discount Indicator,
and the Speed Contractors Return Calls Index,
like Gate 83 closing in one minute, and it won’t reopen,
as this couple comes running down the airway,
and seeing that there’s a little line still, they slow.
*
They almost laugh a little, but mostly they look at each other
like they’ve just been pulled from the Titanic, which
is what it’s like, until you’re actually pulled from the Titanic,
and it’s, oh, OK, no more jokes about that, then.
This is how I ended up here. I practiced making no decisions
and not trying very hard. And then frantic at the last moment,
where there’s a lot of fussing around, some rules added
that one now can feel a long part of, but this
is the first time as well, like putting on a house
makes a family happen, and then we say it’s the point
or something. It’s like trying to focus and unfocus
simultaneously, like you’re making art or you’re thinking
about God or one of those magic eye 3D posters
that suddenly becomes a puppy, and everyone claps.