Step through this door, show your passport,
your ticket, your boarding pass,
your lopsided traveler’s grin,
and you may enter,
the doors close tight, you are lifted
away from the trodden earth,
your past but a memory, your future a dream.

this is no train hurtling across fields,
no bus lumbering through city streets,
you are in a sealed capsule,
a cocoon from which you will emerge
in a different place, a different time.

look around, find your seat,
search the faces of your temporary friends,
your new nodding acquaintances,
the neighbors you choose to ignore,
take off your shoes, loosen your collar,
eat, drink, sleep if you can,
talk under the glare of reading lights,
above the ceaseless whir, the humbled hush,
peel away the covers from little corners
of your life, and leave the rest concealed,
savor the moments of this metaphor,
its birth, its death, the journey in between.