Alan Perry: “Dear Despair”
DEAR DESPAIR
I pass you in an airport
burdened with your carry-ons,
wheels squeaking a slow-motion cry.
The wet tissue near your eyes,
wrinkled clothes you slept in
tangled from crowded skies.
I mistake you for a cancellation,
a one-off to be rescheduled
to a time and place you’d rather be.
I don’t understand your gravity,
the weight, the drag of leaden feelings
that can pull me to the ground.
As I rush toward departure
all I ask is to let me pass.
Let me gather my belonging
within a circle of friends
where no one grieves, weeps
or leaves a home where hope resides.
Let me move through freezing tunnels
to a place that coats my flight
in gentle de-icing, embraces me,
keeps me from falling.
Alan Perry is a Midwestern poet and editor whose debut poetry chapbook, Clerk of the Dead, was released by Main Street Rag Publishing in 2020. His poems have appeared in Tahoma Literary Review, Third Wednesday, Schuylkill Valley Journal, Open: Journal of Arts & Letters, River and South Review, Ocotillo Review, and elsewhere. He is a founder and Co-Managing Editor of RockPaperPoem and a Senior Poetry Editor for Typehouse Magazine.