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[Ground Speed: 635 mph] [Distance to Go: 961 miles]
[Altitude: 35,233 feet] [Outside Temperature: -69 F]

Ectopistes migratorius: done perfected the art
of getting places swift only to arrive unprepared

to do anything (about the situation), we squander
the interstitial with soft drinks and dessert air.

Skies alive with passengers, oh infinite multitudes
so common. Common. Stool pigeons singing for our

next mean meal: have we nothing more than skin
in the game? A Very Large Array of bad faith clogs

intention’s artery, every blood-simple truth trotting
its sulky way to stuck revolving-door heart. Magic

bullets just spray buckshot: lame healing idea or
hopequick cure. Call Mom fraud. If we could stop it—

’Nam’s fragging, now’s fracking—don’t you think
we would? For months once, trashy needles below

my grounded window, your kin and kind in dark lightwell
woke me each morning with clockwork brick-wall cooing:

soft gray breasty robots, relentless, manic, calm.
Might we match the splendor of such indifference?

Why sweat whether Messi scores, whether Sigur Ros is
or isn’t, whether Chinese princelings Audi(t) through

built bubbles? We know Bangladesh will burrow under
calmly cooing waves and bears drown hungry in search

of seals. That snowy owls will head south,
perplexed parrots north. Whatever! Ever?

You’ll inherit the regal garbage of our greatest
accomplishments anyway: our cars, our I.V.-dripping

phones—ripped from our ears—temples and sin-
a-gogs, preachers preaching ‘gainst sex but for more

children. Multiplication: apocalypse. Sheerest weight
of fabric lives will sink the planet past Pluto. Not dwarf

but dense, so heavy we. Heavy. Earth: the schoolyard
bully. What’ll be left? Committee meetings and body

bags. The eyes have it. Eyes turning to No’s.
The Latins had a name for rock but no name

for jazz. Miles, open. Miles, muted. Pardon
the interruption, please return to your meats.

to be published in the forthcoming book, Some Pigeons Are More Equal Than Others, by Julian Charrière & Julius von Bismarck