JFK International Airport: August 2019

A dark-haired woman in line is crying
and a security man in a blue uniform does not care

or he does not have the time
to care or he pretends

not to care, because what else is there
to do? This crowd is so full of people staring

everywhere but here. The man looks
from the woman’s face (damp)

to her open passport (dry). The images,
he decides, are the same. Like any sadness,

her yellowed luggage wheels drag through gathered dust
and no one speaks of it. I wish I could

believe this was the man’s attempt at some quiet
kindness. That the woman did not feel shame. I wish

I could not so easily see myself in either.

Rachael Lin Wheeler is currently a student attending Choate Rosemary Hall in Connecticut. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee and her writing and photography have been recognized by Scholastic Art & Writing Awards. Her poetry appears in various publications. Serving as the editorial assistant for EX/POST MAGAZINE, Rachael Lin is also the founder and editor of Vox Viola Literary Magazine—an intersectional feminist publication—which can be found at https://voxviola.com. She is prone to 2 am laundry folding.