AIR TERMINALS Poem by James Byrne

for Sandeep Parmar

‘…I dreamed
of a page in a book containing the word bird and I
entered bird.'

Anne Carson, ‘Gnosticism I'
Reading how Mansfield claims the word air
is to live in it.

Pure scheme vs. science anxiety.

Not the duck of a boy emphatic
nor the rich-leaning Rosemary,

more a chance to inhabit
adrenal pressure—
six hours of braided sky
pushed through cloud braille.

*

How to steady up when all at once
air batches you out to crash phobias,

night after night,
wing tensions grazing your head?

*

Small curve of trust in a child's joy at architecture.

At the terrorist check
threshold and counter-threshold—

a sparrow's fear of total sunlight,
a studious approach to Boeing assemblies.

*

Carefully your ration array of clothes
checked in tight folds touches

and is how air means,

clipped around the roots of a hand

as you look back gesturing—
once twice finally.

*

Air as the steadying of addiction:
how to breathe as the shadow dips?

Air-guides to breakers at the logic gate
the perfect crime, always getting away.

Evidences in landing vapour—
the movement of my hand on your back that says

‘go'.

*

The route I take I take on foot,
afraid and tenderly loyal.

At the ventilation tunnel
the smooth saturation of air vocals,
every tenor, decorous.

Your flaunting of altitude
is strictly west-hugging.

How the difference tells?

There was a cold bitter taste in the air
and the new-lighted lamps looked sad.