Somewhere Over the Atlantic

The seatbelt light is off.

The shades are down.
The cabin has agreed to darkness.

No one speaks.

My body does not know
what time it belongs to.

Wine settles into the blood,
a small, deliberate warmth.

Outside,
there is only cloud
and what the cloud is covering.

The sea continues
without needing to be seen.

We move over it
as though this were natural.

As though distance
had been solved.

I try to imagine arrival—
the next city,
the first street,
my feet on something still.

But the mind won’t stay there.

It drifts back
to where I was,
then forward again.

Neither place holds.

For a while
there is only this—
the low engine hum,
the dim outline of strangers,
the body waiting
to be told what hour it is.

Sleep comes
without commitment.

It takes me briefly,
then releases me.

Between departures
and arrivals,

there is this narrow interval
where nothing is required,
and nothing can be kept.

I close my eyes.

Time loosens its grip.

Not gone—
just less certain.