Baggage Claim

Daily, she haunted the airport from first light till hunched men spun floors clean, circling circling carousels at baggage claim, shoulders shouldered by hurried travelers, searching each face for… her, lifting, like breathing, a laminated photo once printed on the fifth page of some local gazette, holding it in her gaze, rushing forward to hoist suitcases from endlessly revolving belts, handing them, repentant, to each one she spotted, who, with a frail, reaching arm, resembled Elderly Woman Killed in Car Crash on I-95, mumbling, “I’m sorry,” or, “I’m so sorry,” or “forgive me,” for the hundredth, thousandth time.