Terminal Three

By A.J.R. Mennon

Rhapsodies from jet engines whir, soar and settle

Disrupted by the whistling of one grey kettle.

Announcements call attention to endings, to beginnings.

The lady barista steals swift glances as she

Prepares my order, but I can’t be bothered

If my order alone makes her busy at such an hour

When even the dew on the glass window balks to trickle

And the worth of the luggage left behind begins to sink in.

The colourless sky, to cloud-up more, doesn’t threaten

Nor brims with the promise as it once brimmed

Not even a month past, painting my sunny arrival.

The double espresso better redeem the economy ticket

For these are sunless mornings I must witness

When the dew is static but eager tears travel to stain

And vanish into those thick, endless carpets laid

Across the floor to each corner of terminal three.

Though more jet engines now soar, the kettle turns silent

When eyes hunt the sky yearning a light that’s been stolen.

Sips of the hot black coffee slip off quivering lips

Wetting the beard—now more moist 

Than all six eyes were all but fifty-five minutes ago.

Sniffing my forearm for the expensive colognes I sampled

About thirty-eight minutes ago, skimming the duty free

Fighting to forget the city that in a few hours awaits.

The cocktail of colognes, the liquors, the chocolates

The heavenly frankincense dispersed in the air 

In between the scent of melted butter and fresh coffee–

All meet to make me forget the weight of my wallet.

At my toes, the world feels laid open with flights toward

The ends of the earth, with fresh starts teeming and yet

How far can I hope to fly than what fate’s umbilical cord lets?

So, it goes…not to new ends or starts— I must be headed

To see drab and grimy walls of decayed ties

Without endings or beginnings, further closed in

And wait another year to breathe the air I now here leave

Though with a secret breath stolen, I return there.

From running towards the sea before sun-bathing mountains

To walking circles of a park buried in dust and concrete –

Each breath labouring through the airborne poison;

From air-conditioned bliss all day in my sanctum’s silence

To sleeping on the hardened cushions of the hide-a-bed

In the living room three feet from the main entrance

With cacophonies of construction, weddings and horns—

If solace is not stung first by faces and voices pressed inside.

Worst of all is to trade the one transparent, smiling face

For a multiplicity of masks – including the tainted ones.

Oh, I’d do better to focus on the croissant

Housing either too much butter, or tear-stains with

The coffee— two of the three luxuries I can afford.

In this Icarian month which brings gifts to be robbed

Apart from our annual ritual that it’s been for a decade

What is it about these terminals I find sadly amicable?

An affinity adopted for what these stir as I sit awaiting

To be carried off, even to a city I love and hate

Hard to pin down, but I better enjoy—

Good the flight’s on an hour’s delay.

Let me drift rudderless, with classical music

Before on one of those island-recliners, I lie

Pondering what I most probably should not

Wrapped up in the warm melancholy

Turning over and over in heart and mind:

The real cost of a greater income from a life 

Lived apart as we’ve done all these years

To us at terminal three 

Once an year only 

Becomes apparent.

This one thought

Behind my ears

Like a wasp flies

And buzzes on, 

Then stings:

Will I ever escape 

The city

Of smoke

I now call

A home

And return for

A permanent dawn?

By A.J.R. Mennon