Human in an Airport

(photo: Naugahyde)

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Human in an Airport

To be human is to sit cross-legged

on a Naugahyde chair at an airport-gate,

which is no gate, to know what the word

Naugahyde means, to wear a dark woolen

coat, to wear cotton jeans which owe their etymology

to Genoa, to have had some of your head's

hair tinted yellow chemically, to wear metal

ear-rings, to wear a diamond-barnacled band

on one finger, to read with great rational,

passionate concentration a book entitled

World War IV, and to mark passages with

translucent, yellow, watery ink as if you

might be personally involved in this or that

denouement of history. And to sneeze.

Hans Ostrom Copyright 2008 Hans Ostrom