Soft, now,

when zippers awaken me

amidst waning fluorescence

into five AM hotel haze

backseat baggage claim

 

I ask,

is it a question of where we remain?

 

Or the places we pass:

a collective sense of security gained

upon completing a crossword,

purchasing a deck of cards,

pressing a gob of silly putty between your forehead

and the Amtrak train lounge window

until it melds into the scenery,

 

drawing a color-by-number

into cohesion,

looking for yourself

in Where’s Waldo;

looking and not finding.

 

The fluorescence becomes a soft incandescence,

and still I am not in an airport,

in sheets I remain,

in books;

 

I am the Silk Road,

the Soviet mirror,

 

I am the sesame seeds on fresh-fired naan,

the wild turkey outside the window:

freshly and fully I am Tashkent.