we are running north and south
BY CASEY PATRICK
amelia earhart makes a list of regrets
BY CASEY PATRICK
Not my era, my sex.
Not wanting the things I did.
Not hours of radio static and waiting,
the ocean’s yawn, this whole huge sky.
Noise in my ears. Not having it.
The wasted fireworks of flares
after the propellers’ song quit,
though they were nice at the time.
The emergency flotation device.
How I didn’t think of it first.
Hours on the ground after a takeoff went sour.
The time I thought a cloud was a stork and
the time it was—that shadow geography.
Not the cold coat of clouds.
Not a single beaten record.
The sky’s greed against my own, though.
That knowledge. That lack.
