Flying Home Poem by Rachel Hadas

Down milk-bright colonnades
the leper's bell recedes.
Shades lowered against the gleaming waste of ice,
I sit back, bathe in lukewarm acquiescence.
Dutiful, prompt,
strapped, doped, a little drunk,
squinting at international afternoon
I'll soon pass GO again.
And if these colored pencils, nose drops, passport
should plummet with the rest of the huge oval,
giant time capsule soft for the shark's maw,
will a notebook ambered back to front with words
rescue me from oblivion?
Syrup of skittish travelers, fame. I yawn.