He stood in the middle of the aisle with a poker face,
In a rigid military posture,
As stiff as a veteran soldier,
With a slanted neck and curved torso,
Like the Hunchback of Notre Dame.
With arms on the sides of his body,
And shoes polished the usual professional way –
Laces tied in a business bow.
When the time came to leave,
He hugged Mother ever so slightly,
With an expression I could predict was coming.
When he pulled back,
The peach fuzz on his round head cringed like electricity applied to water,
With his bushy ears (that were more hirsute than his head) greeting the breeze by skirring and gliding feverishly against the clammy air.
His gravel eyebrows stood frozen in place,
As paralyzed as stone.
He caressed Mother’s face with his aged, masculine hands,
In a manner most unpleasant to the person being caressed,
With hands I had only seen used in violence –
On purpose of pain.
His mouth stayed stock-still,
The same pair of gray gloomy lips with nothing to say.
His teeth remained enclosed in that mouth,
Like a pearl within a clam,
Except that they were so yellow,
It hurt to look at them.
Nevertheless, they were slender and long,
Like rows of Chiclets®.
As time reached its end,
And the computerized female voice announced various flight numbers,
Irrelevant to ours,
His face became blanketed
With a faint, sober expression,
An emotion of real believable sadness and piety.
Finally, he turned his attention
To me
And clutched my icy cold hands
Which were shivering with delight
And confusion.
His eyes locked into mine
And there,
I saw the once blank,
Depthless eyes, secluded in darkness,
Evolve into a pale purple color,
Like chemical iodine.
Change color into a deep indigo tone,
One of true misery, fatigued by its own existence.
From there, a violet tear glided down his bristly olive cheek
And we departed
To go.