Altitude 32,000
and raindrops batter plexiglass.
Your wrists are bound
with impalpable twine to the armrests –
twig-fingers crimped around quiet
like arachnids suspended
from umbra ceilings.
Our stomachs levitate.
I realize it’s the first time in three years
I’ve witnessed your impending ghost
spin nightmares into mortar
petrifying on the rings of your irises,
the insides trapped and melting,
closed-in like coffins.
Your pleated brows emerge
from hibernation, a three-year winter,
and I recall Asheville, how you seemed to rust
with birch leaves atop the trail last fall –
sneaker tips kissing air cured in turkey legs
and cranberry pus wafting up the precipice
from doll houses.
You were glazed porcelain,
and I had to fold you in
like an envelope I couldn’t bring myself
to open
while our lungs unfurled warmth,
mine rolling dandelion puffs
off a clenched tongue,
dispersing
seeded
prayers
that
failed
to
thaw
November…
we watched seconds mound
like iced loam at our toes
until my tremors subsided enough
to continue.
I witness your pupils liquefy,
swirls of sable in the basin’s circular frame,
the scythe like an oar churning whirlpools.
And you’re mute asking,
the liquid pooling, teeth quivering
like tight cello strings
gilding pressured air into music:
Are we going to be okay?
Turbulence exudes slugs of mucus
and deafening shrills from a newborn –
shakes anxiety like pennies
from the passengers but yours I cull,
latch in my cranium like gold.
The plane dips, careens over wind sockets
and for the first time in a while,
I know.
—Published 6th November 2020
About Danae Younge
Danae Younge is an undergraduate at Occidental College. Her poetry has been recognised by the Live Poets Society of New Jersey, Vita Brevis Press, Palette Point, Wonders Magazine, Mason Street Magazine, Rogue Agent Journal, and Academy of the Heart and Mind. Website: www.danaeyounge.com Instagram: @danae_celeste_