The Return from California

1. In soap bubbles we float. Or in iron cadges. Or Armani Suits. Do you remember what dirt smells like? So yea we can soar through the clouds and the moon’s placenta and the Ocean’s guts and all that—but we can’t smell the clouds or taste the moon or drink the ocean’s core. When we step on the 4 30 flight we trust only our eyes—trust eyes over hearts or feet or guts. When we do not smoke and keep our seats in a full upright position we observe a ritual as old as the sun—we pray to the turbines and they bless us with travel. Because the deep in us knows that to sit in a chair and sip ginger ale and watch a poorly-constructed chick-flick on a four-inch screen is not to punch through the air and outrun the sun’s own light.
2. He is cold and uncomfortable and turns the dial: red and blue travel towards each other’s poles, growing nearer and thinner, to accommodate opposition until both fade to nothing. He sighs in warmth and he fears only the serpent that whispers “You are tired—you have come far—you shall sleep.” He only fears the snake draped across his eyes and over his hands, pressing harder than deep sea pressure. And the warmth that falls out the vents mingles with, strengthens, its hissing whispers.
But to ignore the serpent he has his tricks: he keeps his bladder full and painful—its pressing on his gut reminds him of his body, keeps him grounded; he manipulates a piece of aluminum and foam cones in his doors bend the air and boom and whistle and crash and hum and he thinks they sing to him, talk to him; he lifts and pounds his left leg into the carpeted floor—he sings out loud songs of his youth. So for comfort he is warm. For warmth he should sleep. Against sleep he contracts his pubic muscles and listens and pounds and sings. Against sleep he fights. Against his steering-wheel he dies. He dies for comfort.