I rode home in an airplane next to death one night.
I sat on the window seat and he on the aisle – an empty seat between us
I was flying from Tampa, from a hospital room where my cousin lay dying,
cancer cells eating her.
his hair was dark and greasy and I can’t remember his face.
I think he ordered a
drink. I try to forget.
All I recall is how cold
I felt, how, bent drawn
spine so cold
(I try to forget – I practice forgetting daily)
In response to Na/GloPoWriMo Day Eighteen prompt, which gave examples of poems that “take elusive, overwhelming feelings, and place them into the physical world, in part through their focus on things we can see and hear and touch.” and challenged us to “write an elegy of your own, one in which the abstraction of sadness is communicated not through abstract words, but physical detail. ” This song from Rising Appalachia is so worth listening through – the words of the poetic elegy in the middle of the track are haunting and hit my core.
Small Burdens 
I imagine this as knowing he is there as a reminder.
There was really this weird guy sitting near me on the plane that night. I have never felt so strangely cold – unbearable – I’m sure emanating from the experience I had just had spending the previous 36 hours in my cousin’s hospital room, and yet nothing like what I’m sure she was experiencing at that moment. I didn’t say a word and couldn’t make eye contact with the guy, but in my grief-altered consciousness he became an strange embodiment of death, itself. I haven’t thought much about that night since today’s prompt – a powerful reminder for sure!
What an odd experience. You’ve used it well, here.
Sometimes it does seem death is following us around. The atmospheres of hospitals linger even when we leave. (K)
Poignant poem. It does seem this fellow passenger was the embodiment of death. Thank you so much for sharing this song. It seems to emit a lilting summons of Death.
Thanks