While I Waited There by J.R. Solonche

Photo of people in airport — Photo by Toby Yang on *Unsplash*

While I waited there

in the terminal at Newark,

I spotted something

out of the corner of my eye.

It was a bird flying back

and forth along the ceiling,

and because I was

in an airline terminal,

I thought a small ironic

thought and smiled a small

ironic smile and made

a mental note to write

a small ironic poem later,

but just then another

passenger turned to her

companion and said,

Look at that bird flying

around trying to get out,

and her companion

turned to her and said,

No, I don’t think so.

Would you trade

all this food and shelter

for a hundred feet of sky?

So I took back my small

ironic thought, my small

ironic smile, my mental

note about my small ironic

poem to write theirs

straight from left to right.

J.R. Solonche is the author of Beautiful Day (Deerbrook Editions), Won’t Be Long (Deerbrook Editions), Heart’s Content (Five Oaks Press), Invisible (nominated for the Pulitzer Prize by Five Oaks Press), The Black Birch (Kelsay Books), I, Emily Dickinson & Other Found Poems (Deerbrook Editions), In Short Order (Kelsay Books), Tomorrow, Today & Yesterday (Deerbrook Editions), True Enough (Dos Madres Press), In a Public Place (Dos Madres Press), If You Should See Me Walking on the Road (Kelsay Books), The Time of Your Life (forthcoming April 2020 from Adelaide Books), The Porch Poems (forthcoming 2020 from Deerbrook Editions), and coauthor of Peach Girl: Poems for a Chinese Daughter (Grayson Books). He lives in the Hudson Valley.