Layover, Terminal F

There is a fractaled edge of land,
inlaid and resonant, just beneath the one
the plane flew over, getting here.
Just so: the size and shape
of solitude is the size and shape exact
as the real chair encased
in the seen chair, the real hand inside
the hand held, the real lake sunk
into the lake we strip to wade.
So it is. So it is,
isn’t it?
Bone at the bone?
Cell’s cell, atom at
the atom’s dark core?
All this time spent trying
to pull sidewalk off sidewalk,
peel porch from porch.
Bite towards each nut’s nut.
Sometimes, we collide,
and then half a hitch later
the ones within each one
collide, too. That’s how
love is. Neither word
nor word inside
can get it right.

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Zoë Ryder White’s poems have appeared in Thrush, Hobart, Sixth Finch, Threepenny Review, Crab Creek Review, and Subtropics, among others. She co-authored a chapbook, A Study in Spring, with Nicole Callihan. Their second chapbook collaboration, Elsewhere, is forthcoming from Sixth Finch in March 2020. A former public elementary school teacher, she edits books for educators about the craft of teaching.