after lingering on the tarmac
  reading and waiting, earplugs at hand and the
  fight for the flight's "open seating" suddenly
  and unexpectedly revealing the usually hidden
  caste structure at work, pretty people sitting
  with pretty people, business readers sitting with
  business readers, the unintentional segregation
  lurking behind the ticket-counter's semi-random
  spray of seating assignments, like with like

reading about this fall's movies
  heartfelt, funny, sexy, violent -- just the
  things that make each of us human, rebroadcast
  and thrown large on walls across the country like
  spaghetti strands being tested for texture --
  did they learn from the last one?  can they
  possibly hope to get it al dente the next time?

we take off
  late and apologizing, everyone polite in that
  particularly airplane way; it must date back to
  the beginning, Orville must have turned to Wilbur
  at least once and managed to inconvience him 
  still smiling, Wilbur fuming but powerless to
  stop his satchel hurtling off into the Carolina
  dunes unbidden, a long evening's walk to hunt it
  down even with Orville's hand-written voucher
  good for another flight

we take off
  smoothly, the ground moving away below us like
  it's being pulled on tracks, gravity's hug
  sinking us all into our seats as we rise up

through the first layer of clouds
  into this semi-light already brighter than the
  ground, the clouds below us a loose-knit grey
  scarf on a glass coffee table, Boston below us
  like last year's discarded magazines

through the last layer of clouds
  with the sky light and blue and beige above us we
  come cresting through into the air like nothing
  so much as a dolphin, our smooth pewter skin
  shedding drops behind it, grinning as the clouds
  are first eye level, then feet level, then below
  us and the illusion of leaping continues, our arc
  is unstoppably high and the peaks and valleys of
  the clouds around us hold no more danger to us
  than our own breath

our humming fans and steady lights surround us

Orville and Wilbur stunned at our complacence

we are truly living in a brave new world