The airport is near to the sea,
on the narrow strip of flatland
before the silvery grey mountains begins,
where tiny bushes, light as air, grow
in stony cracks only held down by a faith in an abstract god;
but before winter storms they disappear
no one has yet discovered where.
When it rains,
it often does,
black umbrellas smell of angry, foamy ocean waves
and women’s hats of rinsed seaweed.
The bus going into town had its windows steamed up,
silent travellers within,
pale faces full of unspoken, blue dread.
Rented a car,
the traffic was slow, well regulated and gloomily Nordic.
A flash of fear came over me
I could so easily drown here
and be regulated too,
not find my way back south in the vale,
far from the sea,
but near a tiny lake that dries up when summer is hot;
where the light is lucid,
even in autumnal fog and the future is as clear as life lived.
Yes, they had a flight to the south
leaving at nine o’clock.
I closed my eyes
and didn’t open them again
before I’m safely in the air.