Airmail Letter

*Written for day 23 of the PAD challenge. Prompt: an "exhausted" poem.

thick with lack of sleep, writing a
missive in the blue-red-blue-red-blue-
red airport terminal, waiting on
the next leg of her flight
and home to New York after
seven long nights in Los Angeles, the
hum in her ears makes it an
effort, the line between her
eyes and the tablet as taut
as a string used to pull teeth

sealed, stamped, and deposited in a
red-white-blue-red-white-blue-red-white-
blue mailbox, the lines of
his address wavering as
she posts it

sleeping, before touching earth, Austen
fallen from her lap, the
bump-bump-bump stuttering
against the runway jolting her
awake.....and longing to sleep the
sleep of angels still abed