I lived near a seaport when I was little.  My uncle took me on a stroll to where cruise ships would depart.  We had missed the big cruise ship leaving the harbor that afternoon but it was a nice walk for us anyway.  I spied near the docks a tiny plastic robin egg blue container.  Delighted, I immediately picked it up and asked my uncle what it was.  He told me it was a thingy that held a long roll of confetti like paper in which a cruise ship passenger would toss it to someone on the dock saying goodbye.  The person on the dock then would hold on to it till the ship moved away and the confetti snapped.  And the more athletically inclined wavers, goodbyers, tearful left-behinders may do a little run to stay in pace with the cruise ship as long as there was land under their feet to keep the confetti tether from snapping.

Amor,

We have to see each other go often
We have to keep up our visual tether at the airport
Then you are in line
Then you are out of sight and back again
Then I see a hand reaching up to some impossible height
I knew it was you
till it is not

at all humanly possible we keep in touch
while you are behind some barriers
patrolled by uniforms
grim and polite
till my electronic robin egg blue signal snaps

In that in between space
where you are in reachless hours
my heart is the athlete
keeping pace with the dance
we did in our last moments at home
surrounded by luggage