My Father is an Alien

He blends into the crowd

as he waits for me at the airport.

I’m thirty-eight years old

and he asks me if I’ve grown.

The gray in my hair

is like his last

I saw him. At least time

has kept its word.

We hug like squeezing by someone

in an airplane aisle,

arms turnstiles,

bodies hard as suitcases,

before working our way

to the big round lip

of the baggage claim.

I still have his elbows,

his hands and shoulders.

In five minutes we are silent.

Eyes thirst for their own

among the bags that descend,

no two exactly alike, all falling

into the same slow orbit.

END