The Courier

by Tiana Noble

The flight from Seoul to New York
is fourteen hours long.
You will settle into your seat
and slacken your jaw. Before long,
your ears will pop with the rising elevation
as you cradle your package, holding it
softly and carefully like a Christmas ornament.
You will unwrap her like a tamale,
still warm and steaming.
The lighting on airplanes is never enough,
and the cold artificial air will arrive in bursts,
numbing your fingers as they clutch her
oh so tenderly. You will cover her in cloth.
Bind her in layers of pastel pajamas
until only a bloated baby blue whale
with mustard seed shoes remains. Sunrise
will leak in through the slit on the window,
yellow and low like a lion’s morning growl.
You will touch her face.
She will never open her eyes.

Tiana Noble was supported by a Freya Project travel grant for her Kundiman fellowship.