they come to pay respects like devotees
and offer libations for seat numbers at your kiosk windows
and you grant them not just a gate
but even a time of departure in the form of heavy black print
over thick cardstock paper

they come oozing calm, desperation, joy, anticipation,
and sweat over your lined plastic chairs
and you offer them the sturdiness of your upward scooped palm of asientos

they come speaking in many tongues
and you receive them
to you the tower of babel has fallen and the pyramid
of Cholula is in ruins
but you do not care for what the past has been
or where travelers are from -the Date: is TODAY
and they have paid their ticket

and as mundane as they make you out to be
you are the partera, the midwife, the sanpa
to all their transits
the huesera to some of their dreams
-all dances of departure come to your terminal-
and you animate them like the wolves in the Chihuahuan desert
and the tigers over the Paekdusan

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