Or Stay Again Poem by Talvikki Ansel

The wasp's gray sphere,
papered layers I held
imagining the wings' heat
beating over the eggs,
the wings' cooling in summer
up in the high trees.
At La Guardia,
rows of planes lined up
ready to take off,
painted tails like Lego toys.
Flying east,
how complicated it seems -
scheduled liftings
from runways, you travelling
that web somewhere
to some other place,
late, later, the sun
an orange sliver, fingernail
paring that slips behind
the straight line of horizon,
over ocean
I count the light's white blink
on the plane's wing: nine,
to nine again, twenty
and seven - stop, now stop.