Traveling

Someone you love leaves early one morning.
You hear the big jet's high-pitched whine
in tires keening you home. You feel her go
again in the blast of big trucks passing,
again riding their heaving wake of fumes.

At home, her cat outside her door, meows
the jet's whine. Its tail curling like smoke,
the cat comes to you, sits looking up.
When you take her on your lap and stroke her,
engines headed west hum in her throat.

This going: pain that clutches, now sharp
as cat claws, now dull ache of this wisdom tooth.
Her absence: this cool spell at the end of summer;
this wind streaming like a cruising jet;
your own heart hurtling through the cold.

Jim Wayne Miller ©

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