The Ticket

Dear Readers— 

I haven’t published a poem here at the Miracle of the Mundane in over a year. But poetry is the core of my writing. And, well, I didn’t have time to flesh out a post for September’s first installment. 

When I wrote the last post, my wife and I were expecting our third child any day. We are still waiting as I write these words to you.  

As for the poem, I wrote it after a boarding pass for an Italian Airline fell out of my copy of Seamus Heany’s collection Opened Ground. The ticket’s destination had disappeared, so I could only imagine where I was bound when I read it last; I haven’t traveled out of the country in a long time. 

The poem is from the point of view of that ticket. I couldn’t quite understand what I was writing, but the words came to me clearly. A sign of good poetry, I think. 

Please enjoy and let me know what you think it’s about.

Sincerely,

Mark

The Ticket

I am the boarding pass

that fell out of

the book you bought at

the thrift shop

you came across

this afternoon.

My font’s rubbed off

but you pick me up and 

want to be placed where 

someone set me—

pressed between pages

of Seamus Heaney.

I want you there too; 

we all want a use.

But I cannot press

the same heaviness

upon anyone else

except for you.

I didn’t choose this poem.

You see through me what’s gone

like chinks in the armor

of unspoken thought,

protecting the splendor

of all you’ve forgot.

It would be cruel

to ask you to live for

what you must ignore.

There is always another 

page to turn, another 

ticket waiting to fall

out of a bind that only

promises one way travel

and some opened ground.

Imagine my gusto

as if it were possible

to embody a shadow,

then put me back

where you found me—

an old bookmark

nowhere bound,

wedged between

silence and its sound.