Kaylee Schofield
Falling Asleep to Flight Radar 24
At my gate, I move to avoid the pilot
waiting one seat over with his
trim black bag. I am close enough to scan
the texts—worries about the ice storm
ravaging Philly three states over. Read his
facial hairs like tea leaves. But instead
I watch the attendant, welcoming arrivals in
jeweled cowboy hats,
say, You have yourself a fine day. One throws
away a stranger’s cup that just missed
the trash. And this is at least
a distraction, at most
everything.
If I were in charge, there is no one
on this earth I would clear to fly at any time,
which is why the FAA would never hire me.
We all applaud as the plane
lands, after two hours of using our
imaginations in one of the few ways
adults know how. In the app,
all planes, even grounded,
look like they are flying,
the world a fever dream of yellow icons,
ginkgo biloba leaves in fall,
their wings spiraling down to a frequency
we cannot hear.
I think of my friend Rosemarie who rehabs bats
in her basement, unfolding a
big mesh cookout tent to teach them flight.
The silver-haired one is named George Clooney
and I imagine him robbing a bank
and then getting caught, which they do all the time,
chewing their way through the walls only to be
found and gently returned
to their slumber.
Most brown bats, she says, give birth
to twins, as though this is a fact
that doesn’t upset the entire fabric of the universe—
every bat we see in torpor perfectly mirrored
in another who is somewhere, flying.
One begins echolocating in her hand, as if to say,
I’m on my way, just wait a little longer. Its twin
could be flapping right above the roof
even now, their sounds carefully mapping
each of the earth’s known surfaces until
the only space between them is figurative.
Lately, I’ve started checking the radar when
one crosses overhead, to see what kind it is
and where it is going
and if it’s close to landing, I wait and watch
as if that is the one thing needed to keep someone
safe.
As if seeing is, God, enough.
Kaylee J. Schofield lives by a decommissioned nuclear power plant with her partner, three pets, and a host of harmless spiders. Her poetry has appeared in Dunes Review, Post Road Magazine, La Piccioletta Barca, and others. Find her on Instagram @colormepaisley.