Where is the lesson I need to learn?
Is it beneath the river rock, in the flowerbeds
beside the hotel, among cigarette butts
and dirt? Is it hidden in the placard
next to the Picasso, or buried in my thoughts?
Is every shade of blue a sign of sorrow?
What other colors wave their red flags,
a spectrum of warnings flapping in the wind?
I had liked blue once.
Or has the lesson slipped past me?
Did I miss the chance to learn?
Is it left behind in the bowl,
when I pissed in three different states?
In the past, that was a Herculean feat—
today, it’s two short flights and a full-sugar Coke,
all in the company of two new friends.
We three girls, strangers, so polite, felt like sisters
in less than two hours squeezed together—
arms touching the whole plane flight.
Maybe what I learned is that everything has changed,
leaving me behind. Like that first airport,
where I arrived too late for my flight,
still forty minutes to spare—
only to pay $80 for a carry-on,
now an extra. Everything life
once included, is now a premium charge.
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