In the space between fullness,
in the space between up and down,
tears are the hardest thing to evaporate,
but distance evaporates all.

I have a book in my hands,
and the wires of the city below
are exposed like raw nerves.

I jitter against the cage of my ribs,
always testing distances,
how far they can hold me.

How many thousand
feet are we in the air now?
The plane, like a metal splinter in the sky.

Li-Young Li wrote of a splinter in the hand,
his father bending to prick it free.

Sometimes the skin is so elastic—
it lets things drift in and out.

At this height, I am a splinter
in the palm of the sky, a discomfort
I cannot name or remove myself from.

At this height, tears don’t know
Whether to
fly up or down,
so they well to the sill of my eyes.

I am not full or empty. I watch the exposed
boundaries of a city so quiet and still.

We know people live there—
but ask me for proof, and I have none.