Flying Back El-Al

2/17/11

I woke to ghosts:

men draped in white, swaying

in the aisle, thumbing through prayers.

I am returning (leaving?)

Last month my parents rushed to fill

a nest that was rapidly unweaving.

When I arrived, we desperately clung

to the frame.

Home became a verb

whose infinitive I almost

forgot the meaning of.

I burnt the bottom of an uncooked challah,

misplaced new dishes in old cupboards.

Tried to reclaim

what had grown without me.

I embraced Woodbridge winter:

driving past cemeteries

with tombstones peeking through

snow like a teething earth.

Frigid air perfumed with burning wood.

Now, sitting on a wing

gliding at 35000 feet,

I am ready to re-own a place:

The dumpster cat

with eyes as black as Turkish coffee mud,

slices of kugel served at klezmer,

the Slow Saturdays.

The ghosts have removed

their sheets and now fold

them to fit into velvet bags.

We sip water

pre-packaged like applesauce--

a reminder of how this far up

we are self-sustained.