September 7 2022

My heart

is a whistling wound

in airliner skin, snatching

glasses from faces

and

glasses

from hands.

I mangle the metal and

heavy, thick-bottomed

rocks tumblers

burst against the

aluminum frame.

In my less-vigilant moments

you can see the tooth I lost

when cabin pressure gave out.

Once,

my grin flashed

white and clean.

Shining

as a sharp bark of laughter

rang out unguarded.

My clothes were a graceless lump

of stretched fabric

that you

pulled off

and gathered in your hands

before you shoved them under

the small of my back.

You guided my hips forward

as your knees lost and gained purchase

in slick

loxahatchee mud.

From 30,000 feet and

thirty thousand minutes

away

our small silky bodies

disappear into the swells and valleys

of that field.

I lose them against the

green and black.

I squint and press my forehead

against the plexi.

In the thin crescent moonlight

of a cow field

we lay there

exhausted.

We watch as planes slice open

a black curtain of night

and spill stars

across your shoulders.