I am Twenty-Four,
buckled into an airplane seat,
tangible consequence
of that drunken night a month ago at
Leo’s bar
where I’d bragged about backpacking
foreign cities
and shores with my camera and
notebook.
Dublin’s my first
destination, I slurred; it came out destiny.
So you always say
— when? asked Laurel, her friends —
my new friends — egging me on.
She walked me to the gate and kissed
me.
Revving
engines; I brace for G-force, the lift,
lurch
and tumble of turbulence.
The woman beside me in blue boiled wool — my mother’s age,
had she lived — looks up, smiles vaguely,
turns her page.
The flight attendant drags out the drink cart, a sign of
faith
that this tonnage will not plummet, that somehow
the currents will sustain us. I wash down a seasickness pill
with Jamesons and ginger ale,
drift on the honey scent of Laurel’s hair, aware of how
her eyes mirror the cyan sea ranging
boundlessly beneath me.
Copyright (c) 2014 Diane Dolphin. "I am Twenty-Four," was published in the Naugatuck River Review (Winter, 2014), and was a Semi-Finalist in the Naugatuck River Review 2013 poetry competition.
Hope you can join us at the Origami Poems Project "Meet the Authors" event at Symposium books on Sunday May 18th from 2:00 - 5:00. I will be reading with silent lotus. The event will also feature music, refreshments and an open mic, so bring your own poem to read! For more information, click on the link below.
