Wichita, Nothing Connecting Until Six

The automatic doors let me out

into the drop-off lane at 2 p.m.

I stood there.

Nobody was waiting for anyone.

A cab idled.

A concrete planter had a puddle in it

and a cigarette butt going soft.

I'd never thought about Wichita.

That's the honest version.

The flat line where the sky stops bothering

to be different from the land.

A single-engine plane came over,

low and slow enough to watch

the whole crossing.

No contrail. Just the sound,

then nothing.

There's a whole life here

I don't know anything about.

Somebody's kid is cutting through a yard.

Somebody is pulling a blind

against the afternoon.

The cab left.

I stood by the planter

until I felt something

that wasn't quite loneliness.

The edge of it, maybe.

Where it just becomes:

standing somewhere.