They give me an odd look.
Well okay then, I see
my knee in her back –
the small of it, looks athletic,
like a budding runner –
supporting her spine,
keeping her upright
against momentum and gravity.
I’m somehow her sinew,
muscle and bone,
helping to brace her
as if I were inside her body right now,
a part of it –
we’re twins
unseparated at birth.
Our plane lands on water,
we float on pontoons,
glide into our ocean parking space.
It’s bit from shore, we are
here, she and her body-me.
But it’s shallow enough to jump in.
This must be the way they did it
when landing was new.
Before we crawled up on land,
built airports on there instead.
And all the lesser-evolved,
like the unseparated,
still park their planes amid waves,
step into knee-deep water,
and wade ashore,
as those eons before,
they inched up onto dry land.
Her legs and my legs are our legs.
Her breath and mine are ours, too.
One day we’ll land on land,
she and I grounded,
where all terminals are built,
where we will finally separate.
My demonstration done,
they still stare at me.
Open-mouthed, they’re young,
but it’s flown for them already
at too young an age these days.
It’s beyond a problem,
but one I’ve solved somehow.
I wish there were a secret I could share.
But I haven’t the slightest idea
how I managed to keep myself
in a world where it’s easy to pretend.
Lanning Lee 