On the Leg to Dublin

Something is rotten in Amsterdam.
Probably my clothes during a day
and its night of air(less) travel.

The Amsterdam airport is almost
as empty as the American
president's head. One more leg

to go, I go through a gate only
to get on a bus, which takes me and
the rest of a considerable herd

past an epic line of florescent
hyphens in the dark. They suggest
an endless industrial pause

for no effect. From the bus I
see that over the airplane
hangs a moon that looks like

an egg with problems. Clouds
soil it. Out of the bus I go up
some iron steps to my seat,

which is 2-B, or not 2-B: much
is contingent upon the mood
of an Irish attendant on unpaid

overtime. She makes the woman
seated in front of me stow
a stuffed toy dolphin overhead.

Her co-attendant Conor re-counts
the passengers as a Dutch man
in a yellow vest tells the aircraft's

captain he's going to write a report.
He says several more times, "I'm
going to write a report." The aircraft

seems to fall asleep. I think Hamlet
should have traveled more, gotten
out of the castle into the world,

away from swords and ghosts
and other castle creeps. "Tighten
your seat belt," the Irish attendant

tells me. Her last name's McCarthy.
If she knows about Hamlet, she
probably thinks he's a bit of a wanker,

an English-speaking Dane too old
to live at home who talks to skulls.
The Dutch man in the yellow vest

leaves. Let the report-writing begin.
Let Conor and McCarthy prepare for
takeoff. Let the leg to Dublin commence.


hans ostrom 2019