Nature of Time in Las Vegas Airport

Time eddies and whorls in an airport bar,
and he’s questioning whether he’s here
or not again. In grey, pleated cotton slacks,
pressed cotton shirt, company logo embroidered
red over his heart, he’s maybe everything else,
fixture along with bartop, barstools, and light
upon the liquor bottles. Or does he alone
enjoy the basketball game and beer, longing
for a bowl of nuts and wishing the bartender
would just shut up? What’s time when you work
the patron’s job...hell, any job? Who exists,
when a person paints the table and all decor
as much as the checkered flag floor, neon “Pit Stop”
sign purpling three walls, along with race photos
of Earnhardt and son. A hidden poet, he sits, slurps,
and is the only human here haunted by the ceiling lights
refracted high in the waiting area windows, holy cubes,
boxes of bold errant light, geometries of heaven,
as if you saw a thing in eight dimensions at once,
and lived. Yes, haunted! The sight won’t exist long
without a poem, he thinks! Magic is because of us!
Still, this is always a box of strangers. One more hour,
they'll be gone, but the airport bar remains the same.
A man picks up a briefcase, heads to the terminal.