Outside the Terminal

They march off of their planes,
these that have been belted into
cramped seats for hours.
With confidence they stride forth
from the confines of coach.

This is what it looks like to arrive.

Some of them have connections
to make, so they hustle for those.
But most of them have nowhere
to be in such a hurry.
They're only walking this way
because they can, finally.

We won't be kept too still for long.

It's champagne bursting out
after the bottlenecking and
maddening center aisle shuffle:
racing out and running off,
frothy with phones in hand,
another spilled load.

Except for the old and the crippled.
They're in the way,
but shuffle on with what they've got.

The rest, though, feel like their lives
are somehow back in their own hands.
These modern men and women,
suited, all of them, for business.
These that have bested gravity,
that have come so far, so fast
in such an unlikely bird,
as if it were everyday,
as though humans and their souls
fly all the time, and always have.