Airborne Again

For two hours I am again
buckled in too-familiar
closeness with strangers
in a hurtling tube of contagion,
forced to breathe
unwholesome exhalations
of a hundred others,
all captive to the same
destiny if not destination.

Viruses and bacteria gloat
over choice of victims, this throng
of wingless lumps belted to seats,
intent on their food, mindless
of contaminants as they
slurp, fork, chew and swallow
airline fodder
as a horrid host of germs
hones in like seeing-eye missiles,
and the cold dark
slides past outside like time itself,
uninfected and serene.