First draft - long-distance love poem (need help with ending)

Part of my long-distance love sequence I mentioned. This one's about the hardest part: goodbyes at airports.

Gate B7

We have perfected the art
of the public goodbye -
how to hold each other
without breaking,
how to smile through security
like this is normal,
like everyone doesn't know
by the way we clutch
that we are falling apart.

Your gate is B7.
I will remember this
the way soldiers remember coordinates:
the exact location
where everything ended
and started again.

You kiss me one more time
and walk backward for as long
as the crowd allows.
I count your steps
like I'm counting down
to the moment you become
unreachable again.

[ENDING - STRUGGLING HERE]
The plane will take off
and I will still be standing here
waiting for the next time
we have to say goodbye.

The ending feels too obvious and weak. I want something that packs more punch but I've rewritten it five times. Help?

Agree with VelvetPen - the current ending explains too much. The power is in what you don't say.

I'm drawn to the idea of ending on something concrete and present. You've built such beautiful specific details (Gate B7, counting steps, walking backward). End on another specific detail rather than abstract waiting.

What if the last image is something you do? Buy a coffee you don't drink? Watch the departure board flip? Walk to your car alone?

This is a really special poem. The rest of the sequence must be something.

Oh, these suggestions are so good! I think you're both right that I need to stay in the concrete moment instead of abstracting.

I'm going to try:

The crowd swallows you whole.
I order a coffee I won't drink
and watch B7 blink: Now Boarding.
The cup goes cold in my hands.

Is that better? Still not sure...

First: this poem gutted me. "The way soldiers remember coordinates" - brilliant line.

For the ending, what about staying in the moment rather than projecting forward? The most powerful moment isn't the next goodbye - it's right NOW, when they disappear.

Something like:

When the crowd swallows you whole,
I finally let my face fall.
The terminal hums around me,
full of people going somewhere.

Or maybe even simpler - end on a single image of absence:

The crowd swallows you whole.
B7 blinks: Now Boarding.

Just ideas! The poem is already strong.

That's MUCH stronger! The cold coffee is a perfect small symbol of suspended time. And ending on "my hands" brings the body back - you feel the ache physically.

Beautiful revision.