Songsmith:

Flight to Miami

Assonance, she says.

He says little but

the object of desire

desire which so lingers

in nothing;

un-reconciled desire is

a waterfall of vowels.

In a medium-sized jet arcing

over the Eastern Seaboard,

sun from the right window recedes,

the color of aging bruises.

Blood floods a wound and heals it.

Sun the color of lips and teeth

and the crescents of fingernails

or freckles,

the portals of passage into

the body of another, he says,

but does not look back.

She says fruits,

the fruits of her labor;

Coney Island a ripe fruit dangling

as we seek our apex.

Coney Island a stump tail,

clipped wing of the jet;

New York City is a jet fuel cloud,

the whisker of an aging bum lady.

Lucinda Williams with a voice

that cracks;

sunlight flashing through

a narrow cut in the buildings,

cracking on the edge of song.

And between the shards of her syllables,

her fragile fraying syllables,

I can hear the Captain saying

Virginia and

out over the Atlantic…

What theory of grammar,

speech,

or literature applies?

We crawl along the jet stream

toward the outer banks.

Sunlight from the right the color of

a spring time victory,

Jolie Holland,

I heard you crooning.

And which song will finally

describe the leaving?