We've both wished on airplanes whose landings we'll never see.
Standing alone under winking stars and blinking aircraft,
I always try to imagine the destinations and journeys:
We grimace under fluorescent lights and taste the recycled air,
Thick with liftoff hopes and the touchdown weariness.
No matter how viscerally I remember the feeling of sailing over that cloud-sea at night,
I am still standing on the ground.
The wind that rustles the trees is tousling my hair,
Not bearing me up in rushing gusts.
Limbs reach, grow leaves, let go of them, reach higher
Ignoring the shiny diamond flights crisscrossing the velvety liquid sky.
I want to climb to the top, leap there in one bound and nestle
Just to get a little bit closer to the tiny myriad pinpricks of silvery song.
Darling, keep hurling your razor thin lights across galaxies to me.
Keep wanting, keep reaching bravely,
I'll continue searching the heavens faithfully for your constellation.
No aircraft ever to penetrate the clouds has radiated with such purity.
All the navigation lights in the world will never shine
Like a single one
Of you.