Row 6

[rowens]

Our third plane trip together,

my daughter is fascinated by fields

miles below, a stained-glass patchwork

of various greens and yellows.

I’m more aware of the man in row 6

with black hair and a grey streak like thin cloud.

       hair black 

He’s been watching us, His eyes

glazed in naked thought,

dreaming of my daughter

as she sits happily by my side.

Perhaps he sees another, never realised.

                       something

In his heavy mouth, I see

a love that saw its end in talk

of children and their absence.

Don’t regret, I tell him,

that you’ll never suffer the dark moods

of mangled sleep, nights blent

into mornings and watercolour weeks.

 

He’ll never hear me,

but, as if on cue,

my daughter whips up a storm of whining.

The trolley approaches,

shaped more like an apartment block,

all manner of sweet souls ready to jump off.

 

He watches still

as she kisses me,

plucking her spoils from a bag of Maltesers.

Be happy with who you are, I tell him,

and I imagine myself in his seat:

row 6, by the window,

without anyone to attend to.

 

I never was around poets. This might not be the reactions they want.