An interesting moment
when the airplane swoops suddenly
in the middle of a six-hour flight,
as I am drinking my complimentary ginger ale,
and reading over the shoulder of the guy next to me
who is typing up a grant proposal-

As the woman from seat 13B stands in the aisle
by the bathroom, tapping her foot impatiently,
as the old man in first class orders another scotch-

all of a sudden, a pocket of air stumbles
across our path,
collective stomachs drop, ice cubes rattle,
and instantly-
we are not the masters of the skies,
or of much at all-

our stability is fleeting egoism,
and in the end we are all really just hanging
in the dark
somewhere over the suburbs of Richmond.