# Airport <p>The departure board flickers like a tired eye, announcing names of cities I will never see. A child presses his face against the glass, watching planes ascend into the white forgetting. Someone's mother clutches a small cloth bag— all the world she knows folded into cotton. The security guard stamps another passport, each stamp a small death, a small resurrection. I have learned the grammar of goodbyes: how to stand still while the heart runs ahead, how to smile at the gate where everything splits— the ones who leave, the ones left behind. The fluorescent lights hum their mechanical prayer. A woman sits alone with her suitcase, as if she and it have just met, as if neither knows where they're going. The announcements come in three languages, none of them the language of staying. In the café, a couple holds hands across the table— their coffee grows cold, the clock grows warm. Soon one of them will rise and turn away, pulling a small universe behind them on wheels. I think of all the people suspended here, between the life they knew and the one waiting. The airport is a cathedral of almost, where we practice leaving before we leave. The departure board flickers again— another city, another name, another prayer sent upward in a metal tube toward the indifferent sky.</p>