Arrival at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol

Bodies pour into the hollow

airport, a crowd of passengers

wrapped in thick layers of plastic

fear, their personal health bubble

of hazmat latex. Pandemic panic

produces the need for a shield.                                  

 

My family hides behind cloth shields,

struggling to draw breath into hollow

lungs. Don’t panic.

If there’s loss of cabin pressure, passengers

can reach up for a bubble

of air and breathe through plastic.

 

The deboarding crowd is covered in plastic. 

From head to toe, they have shielded

themselves. For the first time, fear bubbles

in my stomach. These people are hollow

echoes of witnessed pain, passengers

fleeing the panic

 

of a pandemic. Global panic

seals borders. “Cancel flights!” Plastic

can’t protect passengers

packed on a plane. No shield

withstands nine hollow

hours breathing in the same bubble

 

of aluminum. I hope our bubbles

pop. Pandemic panic

isolates souls and hollows

communities, till we’re left with plastic

smiles—the social shields

that make us forget we’re all passengers:

 

anti-socially distanced passengers,

alone in our six-foot bubbles

allowing room to breathe, but our face-shields

asphyxiate hope, leaving only shared panic

among endless layers of plastic

skin, never to be shed, for we are hollow.

 

In Amsterdam’s hollow airport, international passengers

clothe themselves in the same plastic and social bubbles,

wearing panic as a bullet-riddled shield.