Stansted to Knock, December 21st

Floored by clouds so dense you think you
could hopscotch over them, no problem,
or loll there, palmed and cushioned
in a sunlit evermore, we are barely
a couple of toy, plexiglass panes
away from our own private sun.

Here I am open, riddled with light,
my full year split like a pomegranate,
all its days beaded like seeds,
no, not seeds; like quartz
on a passage tomb the rising sun
had flicked to light this morning,

a light I myself am so in need of,
for my soul (for lack of a better word)
in its tiny, gilded cage that I buff up
maybe once a year, (and this is that once),
to rejoin the rest of me, as a plane
touches down on its shadow, minutely.

What seemed impossible up there,
namely hurt, namely flaw,
clumps to a mizzling afternoon
as we begin descent. Clouds crowd us,
muffle, buffet, quell, but we’re close now,
only minutes away from stepping out

into lives we chose, bought tickets to,
where a future, like luggage carouseled
before we’re through passport control,
will be waiting for us to say it is ours,
to be surprised to find it so heavy,
dumbfounded to find it so light.