BLUE PLANET

                    by Jason Harris 

It was black. Its chest
was orange. We were driving.
No. We were flying. It
was flying. There were three of us
burning American fuel. The sky
was blue. Cruise control made it
easy. My feet had nothing
to do with it. The sky was blue.
The sky was blue.
You couldn’t see it
but we were crashing
into atoms. The radio
mentioned war. How we’re living
in dystopia. How the wasteland
is fraught with golden sky-
scrapers and deliberative
rhetoric. What is war
but puckering the lips
of violence between your fingers?
Spitting into it another violence.
It was black. It was
flying. We were driving. We were
laughing – then suddenly
so sad. One white cloud
in the shape of Ohio
rested in the corner
of the sky like a paperclip.
The sky was blue. We were driving.
It happened so quickly
– the thud before us. Before we
knew it dead we watched
feathers flutter in a hurry
from the windshield.
Before it, the bird, bounced
off the windshield it was dead.
It died. It happened
The sky was clear.
There were no clouds
except for Ohio – O
however brief, joyous still,
it was to gather here
with you for a passing moment
on this strange blue planet.






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Jason Harris lives and teaches in Ohio. His pronouns are he/him/his. He is a writer and Watering Hole Fellow. His work has appeared in Wildness Journal, Winter Tangerine, Foundry Journal, The Bind, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, and others. He is on Twitter: @j_harriswrites