Returning

Just so you know it'll
probably take me some
time to unsteep
from where I just was

to have the dye of there
fade from my thoughts
like the freckles from
my skin in the winter

Until then I'll
probably be blinking a lot
and speaking in hesitant
tones as if I can't quite
focus on you or verify your
existence to myself

or really the existence of
anything outside of the
book I've been reading so
intently

the book
whose last page
I turned before finding
my seat on the plane whose cover
I thought I'd shut whose words
won't stay put

defiantly uncoiling
from the perfect loops
into which I'd coiled them

like an unruly set of tefillin