(for the crew of Southwest flight 3361,
Sacramento to Seattle, July 24, 2025)

We rise in this soaring silver bird,
aiming upupup, to a height humans
cannot achieve unless encased
in such a magnificent beast.

And I think of the early years of air
travel, when attendants were young
nurses, Julie told me, she who flew
for American in 1940, employed to
serve drinks, offer a pillow and care
for those woozy from flying so high.

All of 10,000 feet in those days,
she said, maybe 14, cabins
not yet pressurized, all souls aboard
feeling the weight of their lungs
struggling for air, cruising at altitudes
higher than terrestrial bodies
were designed for.

Still, in these times of even higher flight
that make it easier on passengers
and crew, the gyroscope in my brain
always tilts on takeoff, liquid sloshing
from hemisphere to hemisphere,
until the trap door at the top of my skull
opens, and I rise,

I rise with the lift of weightless
feathers burnished bronze,
as I imagine I will one day
when I no longer need this body
and these great silver wings
to fly.