—PLAY SOMETHING WE CAN SING TO, PLAY SOMETHING WE RAISE HELL AND A GLASS TO

 

Flight 366 to Seattle

 

It’s a field of baby’s breath outside the plane window again, each cloud its own trigger. There’s Sis and me curled up fetal and frightened, two anorexic commas lacking a suitable stanza. There’s a lost butterfly. A bloated unicorn long dead. There’s Sis nose-diving off the high board, right wing behind her both flaccid and erect.

And way down below, beneath the fluff and dander, there’s a cotton noose swaying in the gauzy barn light, staring back wide-eyed, just begging us to test the strength of its yarn, its heft, buoyancy and mercy.