IT WAS A NIGHT WHEN FLIGHT HADN'T YET BEEN INVENTED

He had a face
like a FOR SALE

sign that
had been there for ever

with the kind of moustache
that smart-aleck kids

would draw upon
a poster of the Mona Lisa.

His eyes were kind of Dalísh
as when the great painter

announced his
own greatness.

Behind him
a yellow half-moon

posed
perched upon his head

as if it was his
own peculiar particular pet

otherwise he was
nondescript

a no-one
that no one would notice.

An announcement announced
that the flight to Dublin

would be delayed
indefinitely.

Outside the snow was
impossible.

It was a night
when flight

hadn't yet been
invented

and only snow
took to the air.

I only noticed him
because a tear

silently and slowly
trickled down

his left cheek
and hung suspended there

for a century it seemed
before falling on the book

before him
that he wasn't reading

only holding as if
in defence against the world

and I wondered what
his grief was.