Flying Home

Down milk-bright colonnades

the leper’s bell recedes.

Shades lowered against the gleaming waste of ice,

I sit back, bathe in lukewarm acquiescence.

Dutiful, prompt,

strapped, doped, a little drunk,

squinting at international afternoon

I’ll soon pass GO again.

And if these colored pencils, nose drops, passport

should plummet with the rest of the huge oval,

giant time capsule soft for the shark’s maw,

will a notebook ambered back to front with words

rescue me from oblivion?

Syrup of skittish travelers, fame. I yawn.

Copyright Credit: Rachel Hadas, “Flying Home” from Halfway Down the Hall: New and Selected Poems. Copyright ? 1998 by Rachel Hadas. Reprinted with the permission of Wesleyan University Press.

Source: Halfway Down the Hall: New and Selected Poems (Wesleyan University Press, 1998)