If you take away the ticker-tape barriers
and the scattered signs for luggage,
vending machines and airport
senior leadership teams,
all you’ll have is a hall of
travel.


Some seats remain
for the elderly to reside in,
they’re checking holiday books
and pamphlet guides.


Floor space has curdled
into a mess of white-deodorant-
stained teens who want a
good night’s sleep like
the marines across the way.


They, the marines, joke about
the weather, the women, the
watered down beverages from broken
vending machines and ****-cafe-
expensive-coffee down the strip.


De Gaulle is but a roof now:
drains and curving stretches of
eyebrow iron,
not the general France
once relied upon.