The lights are hung, but the town is dry

Keep your air speed up,
my instructor always told me,
and you might make it there
without stalling, without crashing.
I always thought better of that
plummeting feeling before we
reached our terminal velocity.

In the heirloom of the city,
passed down through generations
of our fairest mothers and fathers,
they planned a celebration -
something to commemorate our
not dying in the broken-glass
plains of an unknown continent.

Above the lazily-muted whispers,
but below the clinking of glasses,
I observed a concentrated dose
of all of our wasted time, steaming
in the hot rhetoric and glad-handing.
I imagined the blades of my propeller,
scattered among all the fish in the sea.
_________________________________________________

Playing on my iTunes at this very moment:
Fleet Foxes, He Doesn't Know Why