Rows of screens flicker with images all around me though I don’t connect to the inflight entertainment service on a packed plane. Younger passengers watch that animation of two sisters: one whose touch entombs everything around her in ice, the other who yearns only for warm connection. Several are playing the story of a widowed curmudgeon determined to end his life because his love is no longer in a world out of sync with his sorrow. His first few attempts fail, I suspect not because of technical ineptness, but because there must still be something unresolved in his heart. Everyone’s using earphones, but it isn’t hard to figure out what’s happening. A young family who’s just moved next door (stubborn in their rosy, everyday hope) keep looping him into the business of daily life: help park the moving van, hold the baby awhile; accept a thank you casserole. He sits down in his dark dining room, takes a spoonful of food and his face softens. Watching the neighbor’s children, he upbraids a clown for his forced magic. My cheek is suddenly wet: I’m both prepared and unprepared for the moment, because we know or don’t know what of course happens next.
Purveyors of fine poetry since 2003.
