Wandering around the Albuquerque Airport Terminal, after learning
my flight had been delayed four hours, I heard an announcement:
“If anyone in the vicinity of Gate A-4 understands any Arabic, please
come to the gate immediately.”

Well—one pauses these days. Gate A-4 was my own gate. I went there.

An older woman in full traditional Palestinian embroidered dress, just
like my grandma wore, was crumpled to the floor, wailing. “Help,”
said the flight agent. “Talk to her. What is her problem? We
told her the flight was going to be late and she did this.”

I stooped to put my arm around the woman and spoke haltingly.
“Shu-dow-a, Shu-bid-uck Habibti? Stani schway, Min fadlick, Shu-bit-
se-wee?” The minute she heard any words she knew, however poorly
used, she stopped crying. She thought the flight had been cancelled
entirely. She needed to be in El Paso for major medical treatment the
next day. I said, “No, we’re fine, you’ll get there, just later, who is
picking you up? Let's call him.”

We called her son, I spoke with him in English. I told him I would
stay with his mother till we got on the plane and ride next to 
her. She talked to him. Then we called her other sons just 
for the fun of it. Then we called my dad and he and she spoke for a while
in Arabic and found out of course they had ten shared friends. Then I 
thought just for the heck of it why not call some Palestinian poets I know
and let them chat with her? This all took up two hours.

She was laughing a lot by then. Telling of her life, patting my knee,
answering questions. She had pulled a sack of homemade mamool
cookies—little powdered sugar crumbly mounds stuffed with dates and
nuts—from her bag—and was offering them to all the women at the gate.
To my amazement, not a single woman declined one. It was like a
sacrament. The traveler from Argentina, the mom from California, the
lovely woman from Laredo—we were all covered with the same powdered
sugar. And smiling. There is no better cookie.

And then the airline broke out free apple juice from huge coolers and two
little girls from our flight ran around serving it and they
were covered with powdered sugar, too. And I noticed my new best friend—
by now we were holding hands—had a potted plant poking out of her bag,
some medicinal thing, with green furry leaves. Such an old country tradi-
tion. Always carry a plant. Always stay rooted to somewhere.

And I looked around that gate of late and weary ones and I thought, This
is the world I want to live in. The shared world. Not a single person in that
gate—once the crying of confusion stopped—seemed apprehensive about
any other person. They took the cookies. I wanted to hug all those other women, too.

This can still happen anywhere. Not everything is lost.

The dive starts

on the board….

                                                                    

something Steve

often said,

or Rub some dirt

in it, Princess,

when in his lesser

inscrutable mood;                         

Steve of the hair gel,

and whistle, a man

who was her

                                                          

diving coach,

who never seemed

to like her much.

Which was odd,

given, objectively,

her admirable discipline,

and natural gifts,

the years and years                                                          

of practice, and the long                                                          

row of golden

trophies she won

                                                                    

for his team. The girl

she was then,

confused, partly

feral, like the outdoor

cat you feed,

when you remember

to, but won’t allow

to come inside….

She’s thinking of Steve

now, many years

later, while swimming

naked in her wealthy

landlord’s pool. Or

“grotto,” to call it

properly, an ugly,

Italian word for

something lovely,

ringed, as it is,

with red hibiscus;                                                  

white lights

in the mimosa trees                                                                  

draping their blurry

pearls along

the water’s skin.

It’s 3 am,

which seemed

the safest time for

this experiment,

in which she’s turned

her strange and aging

body loose. Once,

a man she loved

observed, You’re

the kind of woman

who feels embarrassed

just standing in 

a room alone,

a comment, like him,

two parts ill spirited,

and one perceptive.

But this night she’s

dropped her robe,                                                            

come here to be

the kind of woman

who swims naked                                                             

without asking

for permission, risking

a stray neighbor

getting the full gander,

buoyed by saltwater;

all the tough and sag

of her softened by

this moonlight’s near-

sighted courtesy.

Look at her: how

the woman is floating,

while trying to recall

the exact last

moment of her girlhood—

where she was,

what she was doing—

when she finally

learned what she’d                                               

been taught: to hate

this fleshy sack

of boring anecdotes                                                          

and moles she’s lived

inside so long,

nemesis without                                                                           

a zipper for escape.

A pearl is the oyster’s

autobiography,

Fellini said. How  

clean and weightless

the dive returns

to the woman now;

climbing the high

metal ladder, then

launching herself,

no fear, no notion

of self-preservation,

the arc of her

trajectory pretty

as any arrow’s

in St. Sebastian’s

side. How keen                                                                              

that girl, and sleek,

tumbling more

gorgeous than two                                                            

hawks courting

in a dead drop.                                                                             

Floating, the woman

remembers this again,

how pristine she was

in pike, or tucked

tighter than a socialite, or

twisting in reverse

like a barber’s pole,

her body flying

toward its pivot,

which is, in those seconds,

the Infinite,

before each

possible outcome

tears itself away

(the woman climbing

from the water now)

like the silvery tissue

swaddling a costly

gift.