Layovers

“I migrate a lot from state to state,    
you know?” she said, thumbing tape    
to a wall affixing a calendar    
of stock photos    
of tulips and Mount Rainier    
and sunny landscapes in January.    
   
eyes fixed to her work, her nape    
smelled of cigarettes and    
Garnier Fructis, with glued-on    
fingernails coated cerise—    
the kind, i wondered, would    
preclude wiping one’s own ass—    
   
when the memory intruded    
through the door;    
sister wearing fake nails came crying  
into my room; an expired lease    
and attempted rape and gratitude    
when she borrowed the bed to hide  
   
and i, beneath sleep’s skin,    
allowed several maudlin minutes    
to skim across the scurf,    
dreaming in an empty bathtub    
how redolent of    
waylaid flights and layovers    
   
most events are to destinations unknown.    
in those reveries, below flew by    
rooted trees and black mulch and    
murky rivers between serrated hills    
and the languid lake pandiculating,    
its paunch heavy from devouring    
   
so many rowboats that came    
afloat mum in the night,    
22 years ago, out of earshot of    
mortars and soldiers into Croatia;    
or those discovered asleep in trunks    
as cars tiptoed across the border,    
   
like a father in ruth,    
deserting his degree, the army,    
his siblings, his land,    
the hand on his shoulder    
dribbling sooth onto his clothing:    
he was no less a tartuffe    
   
for his children’s unorthodox    
names. What reason was left for    
2-hour lines to trade a VCR for    
a bag of flour weighted with salt, or    
2 eggs laid by greedy hens, or    
cowering misers    
   
redrawing their home's borders    
using the cracks in the concrete,    
when your kids stood eyeing    
the jackknife cut a Hershey’s square    
into even halves and hugged    
their soup bowls as property?    
   
Had only the station been open,    
arriving in Florida on Thanksgiving,    
sick from the heat.    
Were only the help desk open    
to print the round trip ticket    
for New York a year later.    
   
If only someone had taped    
a calendar to count the days    
in the Banyan Tree motel,    
where the daughter nearly fell    
and drowned in a lake and son  
woke in spells from dreams of    
   
playful red dots and windows    
and bathtubs and shells    
and the caramel he stole    
from the grocery store, as well,    
until decades later in New England    
he stuffed a Werther’s in his mouth    
   
and tasted stations on Thanksgiving day,    
the sidewalks in Christmas movies,    
mint and Hershey kisses,    
and steaming bathtubs,    
and—well, i know what the wrapper says,    
but it’s i-don’t-know-what.    
   
she turned to me and laughed,    
placing her glued nails to my shoulder    
when i told her how filling my lunch is    
and which food is good for traveling;    
“Where are you from?” she asked,    
“I grew up in Florida; I can relate,"
   
i smiled, later walking to my car,
passing by replanted nard    
bombarding the lot under    
cloudy backdrop and foggy Cascades    
and rootless evergreens,    
feet tucked neatly beneath repaved sidewalks.