Challenging Poetry

passing in the night

we are strangers,
come together in a bubble of air
to have some hours of our stories
together,

and maybe the woman over
there is on a business trip, her mind
so accustomed to air travel
that she can't remember the wonder
of her first time,

and the man next to her
perhaps is going away from home
after years of taking care
of his ailing mother who died
only days ago, leaving him lost in familiar
places gone strange, and now, in this
cabin he sees everywhere the memory
of his mother's eyes,

and possibly, one of us will
say something—a passing comment
born from backstories and polite
conversation, that rearranges
things so that wonder is reborn
or stability refound—

because these stories meeting
for an hour or a minute—
never to meet again—
can potentially change
our future stories, forever.

Prompt: April 19—Airplane