after lingering on the tarmac
reading and waiting, earplugs at hand and the
fight for the flight's "open seating" suddenly
and unexpectedly revealing the usually hidden
caste structure at work, pretty people sitting
with pretty people, business readers sitting with
business readers, the unintentional segregation
lurking behind the ticket-counter's semi-random
spray of seating assignments, like with like
reading about this fall's movies
heartfelt, funny, sexy, violent -- just the
things that make each of us human, rebroadcast
and thrown large on walls across the country like
spaghetti strands being tested for texture --
did they learn from the last one? can they
possibly hope to get it al dente the next time?
we take off
late and apologizing, everyone polite in that
particularly airplane way; it must date back to
the beginning, Orville must have turned to Wilbur
at least once and managed to inconvience him
still smiling, Wilbur fuming but powerless to
stop his satchel hurtling off into the Carolina
dunes unbidden, a long evening's walk to hunt it
down even with Orville's hand-written voucher
good for another flight
we take off
smoothly, the ground moving away below us like
it's being pulled on tracks, gravity's hug
sinking us all into our seats as we rise up
through the first layer of clouds
into this semi-light already brighter than the
ground, the clouds below us a loose-knit grey
scarf on a glass coffee table, Boston below us
like last year's discarded magazines
through the last layer of clouds
with the sky light and blue and beige above us we
come cresting through into the air like nothing
so much as a dolphin, our smooth pewter skin
shedding drops behind it, grinning as the clouds
are first eye level, then feet level, then below
us and the illusion of leaping continues, our arc
is unstoppably high and the peaks and valleys of
the clouds around us hold no more danger to us
than our own breath
our humming fans and steady lights surround us
Orville and Wilbur stunned at our complacence
we are truly living in a brave new world