I sit alone in this two-seat row
and the cabin lights are off.

I cannot locate the clouds beneath
the wing’s intermittent flashing–

my only light its metronome.
It’s my fault I don’t know Spanish

and understood so little
since arriving in Mexico City.

The only people I’ve spoken to
are retired professors

who told me about living
in Ecuador in the early eighties,

how they once witnessed
an eruption ten miles away–

tufts of smoke billowed out
every five minutes. At dusk they saw

lava seep from one side of the mountain,
but on the other side, a village untouched.

They asked, would you live
in such a village? Not knowing

which gate my next plane
will be departing from, a knife

inside me threatens the throat
of an ancient mountain, ready to erupt.

No matter where I go, I am surrounded
by strangers. Even here, no one talks, just

the omnipresent drone of the engine.
Out of nowhere, the moon a sliver of blood

disappears into air. First fingernail, then
speck, and nothing. So when the plane

descends, my world dark and missing
you who would have been beside me,

I do not know to what depths I will sink.


(originally published in The Literary Yard, Spring 2020)