First Time at The Airport

by Dianty Ningrum

 
When I carry my passport I bring along a certain smell with it
the smell of galangal chicken slow-cooked over a dawn looming 
with solemn adhan by the hands of a sleepless, clueless mother
who doesn’t know her daughter will be fed by a cabin crew, by

someone’s mother who politely hands out italicised menu with a 
sleepless smile paralleling her own, my mom—she doesn't know how 
capitalism works, only ways to survive in it, only knows her 
seven-to-five, bogus-brand stilettos and excel spreadsheets

only knows love            and love             for no reason, only the 
tedious things she mistook for devotion, the comfort she gets 
from ripping monthly bills she has paid. I get more comfort 
from pouring the scatter from the bin and piece them together 

like a puzzle. Who wants to picture a faraway Eiffel tower when 
you can piece together your utilities consumption? No—no faraway 
land is farther than a life lit with fire. As it smears the hands 
of its beholders with sharp galangal smell, my passport’s parting 

ways ahead of me like God parting the Red Sea for Moses
like a general in a journey of conquest, it clears the path for me to 
stride             and stride           forward in a line of people 
crossing boundaries I feel like an island contracting, closing chasm

with my elbows I keep gently expanding, I remember those bedtime 
whispers when my mother used to say boundaries are myths, I mull 
over it while we’re crowding here still bodies dovetailing, waiting 
for a band of strangers pointing at the lines we shall never cross—

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Dianty Ningrum is an Indonesian currently residing in Naarm (Melbourne) completing her doctoral degree in sustainable development. She has been published in The Scores Journal and Australia Poetry Anthology.