I lost myself in the moment and found myself for a lifetime

Gate Agent (September 11, 2017, de Gaulle Airport)

​

Her white glove disappears

inside my well-traveled backpack, the one

that has weathered

time  renewal  regret.

 

She removes items nesting

in soft pockets,

stuffed behind zippered compartments,

in the deep crumby well.

 

She extracts each item

as if feeling the weight

it carries, the history it holds,

handling it

as though it could

split   crumble  dissolve

into dust.

 

She carefully

lays each examined object

one, then the other

on the cold steel table.

She glides

her glove across thick containers

like the blind man describing an elephant.

 

She waves

an electronic wand

over the emptied bag

divining for concealed artifacts.

​

Perhaps she will discover

a buried secret

or detect

the squishy sound of memory.

​​

Here

splayed 

in front of me

artifacts of living

fragments

memories

I lug around.

 

I observe

without comment

forbidden

to touch   question   explain.

​

Here, I am

a bystander

to my own life

whose fate

to move on with it

is in the hands

of a uniformed stranger.

 

 –Linda Belans

​