Salt Herring

I brought back a jar of salted herring from Berlin
The tin lid clamped down around the edges, pressed
Like a pie crust. On the flight back I had eaten
Handfuls of fresh fries, and woke covered
In salt, my hands smooth with the grease.
My hands on my face, mixing the oil with the sweat
Or whatever water sat there. My eyes. My hands.
What I saw: the grained blue fabric of the seat ahead
And the gray groove of the tray set back. The voices
Gutturally incomprehensible and soft around me.
No music. No melodies. The sound of the wind
Outside the plane or not the wind but the plane
Moving the air so that the plane was the air:
Plane air, plain air, just what we breathed, just what
We meant by pulling in that soft fume, slowly.