AIRPLANE SONATA
tonight a man described a snuff film he saw online:
“a couple Mexicans got killed with a chainsaw
for a minute they were pleading
and I thought the link would be less brutal
it said ‘not for the squeamish or faint of heart’
and I am not any of those things”
which is how I feel at an 8 out of 10
not squeamish or faint of heart
but I am up here in the sky
and I am anxious
I describe my heart to you and get it wrong every time
it is a heart like a snuff film I have already lived
yet I still don’t know how to feel
or it is a heart that speaks to me
through screens and asks me
to consider it more often as if by PSA
it is a heart within a heart and I
belong to the air around me
which I try not to disrupt too much
for fear that it will leave me
today I have talked myself into being
kinder or at least to view the world
with a kinder heart or attitude or
however I should describe that thing of me
that needs to change
I love how on an airplane I can
shake my legs as hard as they can shake
and no one will notice
just now I got water
and mini-pretzels, which I will save for later
and then I looked at the earth
and its cities and towns
and it looked covered in a vast web
of burning villages
and I stared into the dark outside the villages
in hopes
of finding the fire outside of fire
I am young enough to love someone
and still maintain my fear
and I don’t know how I will love without that
once I have changed
I feel anxious from something as simple as
a loud chime telling us it is ok
to move about the cabin
I chew ice
and that is what I love
about night
on a separate flight in a separate year
I sat next to a Packer’s fan
who had a terrible cold
which I caught
which then became a sinus infection
I watched basketball
under the strange power of Mucinex
and bourbon
and that was one of the defining moments
of this life
in another life maybe I sat next to a window
and stared out at ant hills
or a group of dogs licking paws
or maybe sat in a house
and gazed at some constellation
convinced that if I stared hard enough
it would begin to scream
what God believed of me
a formation of fireflies
giving it to the air
but these are not my memories
and they have not even graced my dreams
I sometimes love life enough to know
that it is too good for me
and then I wait for my heart to stop
and it doesn’t stop
o let it beat forever
or until I have been moved beyond
where I can recognize
the shape of my deficiency
let me rejoice as I have rejoiced
before
or near as I have ever
Daniel Bailey lives is the author of The Drunk Sonnets (Magic Helicopter) and Gather Me (Scrambler Books). He currently lives in Athens, Georgia.
thebohemyth.com 