{"id":12608,"date":"2024-11-26T19:25:15","date_gmt":"2024-11-26T18:25:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=12608"},"modified":"2024-11-26T20:44:31","modified_gmt":"2024-11-26T19:44:31","slug":"to-the-man-sleeping-in-the-airport","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=12608","title":{"rendered":"To the Man Sleeping in the Airport"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Flower-11-e1732644766102.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"603\" height=\"1002\" \/><br \/><span style=\"font-size: 12px;\">Image: \u00a9 Manchester Museum, The University of Manchester<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Your arm is reaching into the carpeted walkway,<br \/>where hundreds travel the gentle slope<br \/>toward the cold tile of the ground-floor lobby.<br \/>Your pink stomach winks through the rise<br \/>in your shirt, keeps watch as the crowd follows<br \/>in rippling curves to miss your hand, palm-up,<br \/>your fingers slightly curled as if tied off with five<br \/>loosely rigged strings anchored at your wrist, your body<br \/>run aground on a bank of sleep. It looks like<br \/>you recently let go of something hand-shaped, a bowl<br \/>to hold the food you cannot get down the corridor,<br \/>a ripe piece of citrus\u2014the way sails hold the memory<br \/>of wind in their slack. I hope what you let go of<br \/>comes back\u2014I hope you do not need it.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>____<\/p>\n<p><em>John Moessner is the author of\u00a0<i>Harmonia<\/i>\u00a0(Stephen F. Austin State University Press, 2023). He received his MFA from the University of Missouri-Kansas City. He is an editorial board member for\u00a0<i>Nimrod International Journal<\/i>. You can find his poems in\u00a0<i>New Critique<\/i>,\u00a0<i>New Letters<\/i>,\u00a0<i>North American Review<\/i>, and<i>\u00a0Poet Lore<\/i>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Image: \u00a9 Manchester Museum, The University of Manchester Your arm is reaching into the carpeted walkway,where hundreds travel the gentle slopetoward the cold tile of the ground-floor lobby.Your pink stomach winks through the risein your shirt, keeps watch as the crowd followsin rippling curves to miss your hand, palm-up,your fingers slightly curled as if tied [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":388,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[376,425,405,428],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v20.2.1 - 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