Blog as if No One is Reading

At the airport terminal the coarse sound

of wheeled suitcases, a toddler giggling,

running a few feet beyond his father.

 

A brown-haired woman at the kiosk

that sells last-minute magazines and candy.

I try not to gawk, but she looks like my mother.

 

I pull my own wheeled carry-on to Security,

lift it onto the conveyer belt, walk into the booth

and hold my hands above my head.

 

I am always going and going.

The way my mother did.

 

After she packed both our suitcases,

I’d sit on the stool in the master bathroom,

while my mother brushed my hair.

 

I’d stare into the mirror at our two faces

so much alike they could have been

a portrait: The Before and the After.

 

She’s been dead almost 50 years,

and I keep going and going.

 

From 35,000 feet I look down

at the…