The Fairy

she blew in after the lunch bells had faded, Sunday, round two in the afternoon, beautiful in her pale whirl, dancing and floating between aisles like some mad angel in the vortex air of the slow train rumbling toward London.

suspended there, afloat in the rattle and sway of the rails, she drifted into the baggage jungle, over the seats, through a valley of hard-back suitcases stacked like somebody’s whole life in transit. then up, whoosh, into the air, sideways around a lonely bicycle chained to the rack, slowing for a breath, then fast past my eyes in a blur of light, suddenly diving down and settling soft on my knee like she’d chosen me out of all the sad passengers.

she paused a while, wings trembling in the engine hum, maybe feeling the beat of my heart, or just the vibration of the wheels on steel, then lifted again, effortless, back down the aisle in a lazy spiral and out the open window near Cambridge, where the fields rolled green and endless.

white floating fluffy fairies — seed parachutes blowing free from the common milkweed, scattering on the wind, going, going, gone.

rolling to London,
a skinful of Christmas cheer,
Deborah’s birthday.