--- J O E   D U N T H O R N E

Her passport bulges
like an overpacked suitcase.
At security, she whips off her bleepables:
belt, brooch, brogues.

She's asleep before take-off
and later, in turbulence,
she only wakes up
to look incredibly bored.
With a nose like concorde
she sniffs her bloody Mary
and asks for a jerk more tabasco.

She clops past the reclaim rodeo
with everything she could need
in her hand luggage. She'll be at her hotel
- wholly hydrated,
pores as clear as runway lights,
chock-full with clot-less blood -
before a single suitcase gets spat
into their chubby, map-happy hands.

She leaves culture shock to the guide book club,
those who take pleasure
in winding on their watches. By this time,
she'll have made local friends in a local bar,
ordering ales by their nicknames,
not flinching at the double-figured a.b.r.
Even her eyebrows do not betray interest;
they are trim, clipped and landed.