The stewardess bends
to serve passengers
across the aisle.
Her backside
rubs against my shoulder.
Skin to skin,
if not for my shirt,
her skirt.
When she turns to me
I notice her ring.
“Coffee or tea, Sir?”
Her lover
thousands of kilometres away.
Closer than I will ever be.
(Editor’s note: poet Shai Ben-Shalom, an Israeli-born biologist, examines current events in the Blacklock’s tradition each and every Sunday)
