long black hair pulled
loosely back, hangs
nearly to the waist.
long black hair shining
as though wet.
feet, socked,
without shoe.
she walks up the aisle,
bouncing lightly
on her toes.
pivot,
slight bounce,
return.
engines roar mildly,
bathing the cylinder
in surreality.
like thinking
wrapped in gauze,
the silent voice
of your interior,
urged to shout.
long black hair,
unconcerned
in its length,
dry
in its sheen.
love,
love dripped like that
once, maybe more.
in the past,
love dripped ripe
and walked with little
protection, lightly
bounced, muscles
taut. i watched it
walk away, waiting,
waiting for its pivot.
it seems unlikely
to return.
perhaps this is a
trick of the engines,
that hallway in a cylinder,
howling with quiet
noise. a false sea
10,000 feet in the sky.
it isn’t a weeping
heart, that honor goes
to the willows and
the widows.
no, it is
a muting;
is this
equanimity?
this flattening?
up here, up here
it appears flat.
so vacuous as to allow
a floating.
pillars and mountains.
chasms and sinkholes.
up here they are
unseen.
a woman seated
one up and
one over,
she pokes repeatedly
at a screen, mounted
in the seat in front of
her. her finger
is thick and
unyielding.
calcified. she is
unable to convince the screen
to yield to her desires,
cannot find its area
of relief.
folding her aged hands
stiffly, like new
leather, she
stares at the frozen
screen in front of her,
and takes a visible breath.
long black hair,
feet in white
socks, she walks
up the aisle again.
i watch her walk,
watch the woman
in front of me
watch her walk.
there is a voice
inside my head,
it might be shouting,
it could be injured,
wrapped in gauze.
i do not strain
to hear it.
i let myself be
flattened like mountain.
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