Back to Fall ‘22

AINSLEY WILSON

Scars of Somme

Nature heals in fractures: spawning war

green 

she says I’ve never seen 

such green 

skeletal cracks like fingers

come here 

she laughs resting against 

the mound enveloping her body carved 

out of the hardened earth hardened faces

digging holes to save lives taking shelter

in the dirt safe 

deep ravines can’t hide

the cavernous cries echoes of the past 

let’s follow it 

we snake in and out 

up and down come on 

laughter like bells

falling into the soft grass long ago

dust blown away by the wind the earth 

glowing green nourished by spent tears 

scorched memories soften she sighs

look 

she points at a daisy

the wind chimes a tune 

snaking through phantom trenches

she runs barefoot across the

scarred land I follow her

our footprints leave soft indents

like stitches pulling at broken skin.

The Flying Woman

There is a woman who loves to fly. Every month, she plans a trip, sometimes to faraway places, sometimes to visit old friends, sometimes to nowhere in particular. After each trip, she walks out of the airport with her luggage in hand, an odd sort of smile on her face, and thinks to herself, oh how much I love airports and that feeling of collectively belonging to strangers all around you. And then she goes home and books her next flight. And she bides her time until she is again arriving at the airport three hours early. And she finds her seat and stashes her 18 by 14 by 8 inch bag between her legs, and she thinks to herself, oh how much I love airplanes and the exhilaration of flying through the air, teleporting from one place to another without even leaving your seat.

And if anyone ever asks her (which they never do) why she likes to travel so much, she will respond aloud, oh I don’t like to travel at all—how I hate planes and airports and people and all of it really.

But how can that be true? You travel all the time, you’re constantly in planes and airports and surrounded by people!

But it is true. It’s all true! I love it, and I hate it. I talk myself into it, and I always regret it, and I curse my past selves the entire time the plane bolts down the runway, and each time I try to compose myself during takeoff, I inevitably grab the armrest in an involuntary flail of panic, heart racing as the plane ascends into the sky jolting down as planes occasionally do wishing I was anywhere but where I am and then, always, the plane levels itself out, reaches cruising altitude, and slowly I peel my numb fingers one by one, relaxing them back into my lap, and I look out the window, and I see the clouds, and I marvel that I can see the world from the sky and suddenly I am the entire sky I am God looking down at those tiny little silly little humans who I can’t even see through the giant water vapor bubbles and how no one three hundred years ago knew what it was like to fly through the air except for birds and to be a bird is to be God and every time the plane descends for landing, I look at the tiny little cars and how slow they are going and how fast I must be going and how the people are too small to see even still and I don’t even think about the descent until I am racing hundreds of miles per hour on the tarmac and by then I have completely lost sight of my fear and I can’t believe I am touching the earth from the soles of my shoes through the metal of the plane through the rubber of the wheels when I was just a tiny little fleck of the sky not even casting a shadow and there is a twelve year old boy in front of me texting his mother that he landed safely and there is a man across from me texting his wife that he’ll see her soon and there is me staring at the line of trees past the runway unable to imagine what the tops of them must look like even though I was just above them I was just above them and I’ve already forgotten what the tops of trees look like and now it’s too late because we’re at the gate and the seatbelt sign has turned off and it’s only when the plane lands that I want to be back in the sky, only then, because every time a hunk of aerodynamic metal takes off with me in it I am cursing my own name because I don’t even like rollercoasters and yet I volunteered for this I paid money for this I paid money that’s constantly coming and going coming and going and then I’m going I’m leaving the airport and my heart pangs and I realize I miss it I miss the thrum of the airport because at least it’s alive and somehow I’m not alive even though my heart is beating and I can feel it beating through the skin of my breast through the cotton of my t-shirt and how can an airport be more alive than me but it is because all the people in it are trying to go somewhere and I’m just trying to become the sky and how if I was a bird I would never need to fly in a plane and I wouldn’t even have to go anywhere I could just stay in the same place floating over the same field and I would never need to fly in a plane ever again my whole life.

Here is a woman who loves to fly—but that’s not exactly the whole truth. And if you ask, she will tell you that she loves to fly and she hates to fly and she will never stop flying as long as she is able. But no one ever asks, and she travels through airports virtually invisible, noticed only by the odd flight attendant who impatiently ushers her off an empty airplane.