Flight

Flight

That night, the music was a heartbeat
throbbing so loud my phone bounced in the
    cup holder. When she whipped the car around   
        my phone flew from its place and into the
        passenger seat. She didn’t notice;
    she was laugh-screaming too loudly,
belting along to “Uptown Funk.”
We barreled through an empty parking lot
    to avoid a red light, & I saw her smirk
        when she spotted the flock of birds:
        hundreds of them chirping in the lot over.
    Soon, sparrows surrounded us, scattering &
soaring around her cannonball car.
Our joy-giddy shrieks drowned the sound of
    feathers thumping against midnight air.
        We were nothing but headlights & laughter.
        There were wings everywhere, wrapping
    around us like a fog. A living, flying, delicate
tornado. We might as well have been up in the
sky, part of the flock, on our own migration:
    finding the shelter of this new friendship
        for the coming winter.