The Ending’s Beginning

This is the end of it, I think, standing stiff after 7 hours in the air,
the snaking line of terminal twiddling to be bused to immigration,
Honolulu’s humidity soaking me down to a goo of stewing meat and bone,
cooking me well done amid tourists sweating to see Waikīkī Beach.
This is how most vacations end, this slogging through bodies and bureaucracy,
immigration, customs, baggage claim: the wait and the wait and the wait.
All I want to do is get home and shower. A long one.
A cold one. An icy shower that lasts an hour.
Then sleep. Deep. For as long as it takes to make
my body understand I’m on a different clock now,
the tock-tick here out of kilter because I’m still hearing it over there.
Then sometime, however many hours depending on the adjustment to be made,
I (hopefully) wake up, most often refreshed, and face the same mundane way
it has to work when all vacations terminate, the housework, the yardwork,
the everything else that needs to be done to get back on everyday track.
This is the beginning of it, I think, sitting on the edge of my bed shaking my head.