Esther Heboyan: Round Trip I and II

ROUND TRIP I
Paris Orly Airport, January 4, 2006

airport lounge
children scream
lovers kiss

pink touches a woman’s hair and jeans
also bodies
draped like couches
are towed by grave mustaches

airport lounge
children scream
lovers kiss

errant eaters
clutching sandwiches
reel under
strips of infamous lettuce

airport lounge
children scream
lovers kiss

a father’s head
tilted
wants eye drops
only to writhe in desolation

airport lounge
children scream
lovers kiss

foggy weather in Istanbul announced
kinetic days (Hovsep handsomely a-saunter)
where you are forever
delayed













ROUND TRIP II
Istanbul airport, January 8, 2006

the windows of my world
hung low in the corner of my mind
hung shut in the prism of my dreams
hung blank in the yarn of my years

who says doors are entryways
in my case windows

a wintry city in twilight snow
and I come across my first window
joyous tidings at the siblings row
mother’s kisses tumble down below
my slippers of turquoise velvet though
were tossed onto the roof of sorrow

who says doors are entryways
in my case windows

the next noon beneath icy raindrum
towards my other window I roam
a child cringes before the awesome
a pedlar’s bear like a giant gnome
will cobblestep in cryptic boredom
my tinsel dimes for his kingdom

who says doors are entryways
in my case windows

now a porthole above the tarmac
slits the city aghast and far back
to each traveler a kismet rack
a seasonful of grinning knick-knack
one baby utters its howl exact
as if wired to a cloud’s milk-pack

the windows of my world

©Esther Heboyan

These poems were provided by the author for the Armenian Poetry Project's Second Blast .