She has tears and red eyes
In the airport
Sitting just steps
Away
Waiting to fly
Waiting to escape her broken world
Waiting
She bows her head
Down
Staring into the palms
Of her hands
Lines
Of a life she thought was hers
Lost eyes run along the line until
It comes to an end
And there she lingers
Waiting
Just steps away
Her decision is rising up
In the solitude of her soul
She stands on the edge of some precipice—
A woman
who is so lonely
A woman
who is so lost
Out in the ocean where
there is no sight of land
A woman who is long suffering
waiting for a sign—
…Then
Her phone rings…
_______________________
Yet, she is distant
Eyes unfocused
So far away
Her phone is ringing
Just five steps away
In a distant land
She comes to an end
Her phone is ringing louder longer
Demanding to be answered
_______________________
But it no longer matters
For the woman who had tears and red eyes
Waiting in an airport
So close to me and so far from me
Has flown away to some distant place
Her flight has been called…
This poem placed second in the 2009 Wild Violet Poetry Contest.
