Very well travelled

Her passport bulges
like an overpacked suitcase.
At security, she whips off her bleepables:
belt, brooch, brogues.

She's asleep before take-off
and later, in turbulence,
she only wakes up to look incredibly bored.
With a nose like concorde

she sniffs her bloody Mary
and, in a tannoy-smooth voice,
as though announcing descent,
she asks for a jerk more tabasco.

Only hand luggage for this girl,
leave the reclaim rodeo
to the novelty-thrill novices.
She'll be at her hotel, fully hydrated,

pores as clear as runway lights,
full of clot-less blood,
before a single suitcase gets spat
out to cries of there it is! It's coming!

She leaves culture shock to the guide book club,
those who take pleasure
in winding on their watches. By this time,
she'll have made local friends in a local bar,

ordering ales by their nicknames,
not flinching at the double-figured a.b.r.
Even her eyebrows do not betray her;
they are trim, clipped and landed.