I go to visit the clouds,
lofting up to perilous height
in the illusion of Flight
384.
We rove the sky, swifter
than sense can register,
over distance beyond reckon,
exceeding imagination,
the limits of
the single human body.
And we sit closer together
than anyone was
meant to,
or meant to --
and yet I have
no human experience
of you,
coincident companion
of 13E --
because at this altitude,
at this range,
we elude territoriality
by the singular strategy of ignorance,
by the obdurate precise choice
not to see each other:
while we breathe each other's breath,
inspire each other's souls,
cheek by jowl satisfy private hungers
over identical plates of
chemical plenty.
I refuse to know
the color of your eyes,
though your very knees
create my whole perimeter,
in 13F,
though I detect you
no further than your exhalation,
your choice of drink
mumbled to the attendant --
no word between us.
Clouds clouds clouds --
here I could live,
even with you
beside me,
more intimate than either one
of us can bear.
At this thought you seem
to sigh with me,
in unnerving unison,
no word,
no single glance exchanged.
Alongside
the belly of our silver ship,
on the cumulus floor below
glides the grey shadow
of the air craft,
skimming the frothy surface,
parting silken vapors.
The double
darts beneath, beside us
easy as a dolphin,
the perfect partner, attentive
as any romantic consort,
flawlessly following every move
in the pretty dance of mismatch,
form with shadow
deliriously confounded as we draw over the Chesapeake.
Beginning descent,
we slip easily
into the singular,
losing the illusory twin,
penetrating the apparent surface,
lowering through the airs
on vector to BWI, toward meetings,
toward destinations
intermediate and final in other people's lives
that we have made this journey to enter.
"Open compartment doors carefully,
as personal belongings
may have shifted
during flight."
11/10/89