PAD Challenge 18

Airport Poem I: Transit

The ticket agent announces
that your heart has left the gate.
You are not leaving this place.
Not you. Not today. This is where
the soul makes its own accommodations
with the other sad bags
stacked like luggage
waiting to be retrieved.
Something in you rolls over
to the next gate, the next city,
the next destination,
both restricted and constricted,
neither here nor there
but always in transit.
In the dream of your next life,
you will return as an eagle
and you will soar.