0286 Aircrew Stopover Poem by Michael Shepherd

As you walk out of the palatial marble foyer
of the refurbished four-star hotel
where the ‘front desk’ is a healthy walk away
from the discreetly supervised, invisibly recorded entrance,
there they are lined up waiting for their transport –
the airline crew

immaculate, fresh, custom-fit navy uniforms,
neat to ad-sleek hair, those crisp, jaunty neck-scarves
which are forever 1950s and band-box-fresh New World,
they are lined up like some Sultan’s Weekly Choice
for your inspection. Air Caribbean, can they be?
They line up in some informally formal
(isn’t that the ideal for a reassuring cabin crew?)
hierarchy – at the front the quietly heroic captain,
(do firm shaved aftered jaws and distant eyes come with the job?)
then the other cockpit crew; and down the line
the cuties. The last ‘dusky beauty’ is jail-bait young..

so as you pass this line-up, dressed for duty but just waiting,
but so alert, fifteen pairs of bright eyes check you out professionally,
and you them…
you and these smart pleasers have shared the hotel overnight
and you never knew… And the fantasies of lust are here paraded –
do their eyes linger on you just that extra microsecond,
as if – can it be – they’re thinking just the same thought as you?

So for a second, secure in the luxury of the untouchable,
you, they, look full-on, hungry, at each other… and as you walk away,
the barest, barest of backward glances transform the line
into the cast of a lustfilled airport inflight mile-high
discardable paperback
awaiting your wildest best-selling fantasies
on the crowded grubby train-ride home