LGA ➢ BNA
Five bachelorette parties are waiting to board.
En route to the runway, the stewardess interrupts
herself — tells us to make some noise for the lucky girls…
I’m on this flight to finalize
divorce. To empty out an already
half-empty house. #BRIDESQUAD
tees surround me — fake cowboy hats,
bedazzled jeans, & Jumbo Penis Pops —
somewhere over New Jersey jack & cokes
appear, cabin air thickening with imitative y’all’s…
As we pass 10,000 feet familiar nausea settles in —
I clamber over spray-tan thighs to walk the aisle
with steps deliberate as a groom’s — then grip
the mini-sink & count my breaths, eyes-shut,
imagining pastoral geography beneath me:
gradients of green, Virginia is for Lovers.
Tonight these brides to-be will tear up
Kid Rock’s Big Ass Honky Tonk as I
unfurl a sleeping bag in the corner
of the house furthest from the bed.
Tonight they’ll scream for selfies,
hold each other close & pose —
I retake my window seat & watch
curves of the Cumberland appear.
Tonight I’ll find, in every room,
all my old love letters —
turned face up.
Blue Ridge in January
still forest
after you —
palimpsest
of leaves —
where
rhododendrons
exhale
fine silver mist,
cloud-drift
caught
in tulip poplars…
you gave
to valleys
of train whistle
meditation
with harmonica
57 octaves
below middle C —
steep creek
& lichen
soak of moss
& stone
my left hand
& its shadow ring
are home now too —
here now. release.
your voice
is in my ear:
here now.
so clear…
I lie down,
better now
to listen— wind
in high branches
your voice:
& I know
not what
you say —
your voice, at last,
is wordless
clouds disclose
I stand to know
what I can’t hear
so I descend —
to where
the everyone
I love
is living
Reed Turchi is a poet and musician from Swannanoa, North Carolina. His writing has been published in The Believer, Leon Literary Review and A New Decameron, and his music has been featured by Rolling Stone, NPR, PBS, Oxford American, and American Songwriter, among others.