On The Flight Back From Charlotte, NC

I know people write beautiful poems on airplanes
because I’ve read them. Winding descriptions
of rivers, lives seen in two dimensions
from a mile up. Stories of joys and traumas,
whispered or stammered, screamed and silent.
Wishful admissions, thoughts to be exhumed
and then re-buried after landing so
they cannot prick so easily. Ruminations on
moments in time, a million what-ifs written
in shaking print or strung up in ones and zeros
across a backlit computer screen.

I am two hours into a flight across the country.
forehead absorbing cold
against the window,
peering down at highways I’ll never
drive on. Thinking about how lucky
and privileged
and painful it is
to have only one lifetime to fly, and fight, and fall in love,
and try to write beautiful poems
on airplanes.

Morgan Ziegenhorn is a graduate of UC Berkeley with a degree in biology and minor in creative writing. Her work has previously appeared in 805 Literature and Arts and Persephone's Daughters. She is currently a PhD. student at Scripps Institution of Oceanography studying the voices of marine mammals. She is from Sacramento, California.