Air Travel

Some sense of freedom
whistling in my hair, which
I used to love, but now
is weaker every time—
staring from the hidden third
dimension, which like time
does not, in daily life, reveal
the power of its actuality
—captured on the wing
a flash of sun on red paint
engineering angles, rivets,
death-high, death-fast, roaring
and yet still: we could be idling
unless I look up from my phone.
Do I refuse it? Why is it weak now?
I try to care; then floating back
to little screens, collapse myself
back into my little cage.

June 2021

They called the dark lines each a summer
so I guess you were 12 or a teenager
when you died; young for my species
but frankly I don’t know how it is for yours.
Now your skeleton is a display
and we admire the specimen—how pretty—
of your desperate life. My niece turned
thirteen with you in her hands. Ironic.
You know there are billions of us,
maybe seven billion. Which means
every second of every day, we create
about ten thousand years of memories.
I guess there are more of you, but again
I’ve no concept of your minds, memories
being mostly a mental construct, I think.
What ate you? Or killed you senselessly,
is that a thing that happens to your kind,
and was it painful? Did you mind? Or
was it just—what you expected, one moment
more cruel than the rest, but you knew
all along: this is how it will end.
We don’t, really. We just live and feel
some terrible surprise at the end, I guess.
I don’t really know that either, yet,
but I suppose I can tell you afterwards.
I wonder if you ever saw the moon
luminescent on the open sea waters,
whitish light filtering down into waves.
Did you know to make black lines in summer
or was that just another thing you do?

June 2021