Row 6

[rowens]

It's a poem, being plausible doesn't matter. It has its own logic.
Assuming or knowing what the man is thinking or feeling is part of the poem. The poem's dynamic.
What's going on with the I of the poem is one dimension.
The silent communication and assumption on an airplane.





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.