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"Chemtrails" by Kelsi Lindus



I am in a plane trying to let go.

Talked too long, made it about me

again. We are over the piece of country

where farm fields turn to foothills.

There is nothing to write except

rights are being gutted. Lately

I distrust pretty language,

how tidy it tries to be. I can see

where frozen lakes thaw halfway in,

ice so thin you’d fall through.

Somewhere down there, someone has.

Farm hills to foot fields. Farm feet

to field hills. Hills of feet, fielding.

A farm where, there too,

rights are being gutted. We fly

by a chemtrail and for a moment

it’s easy to believe in chemtrails.

In the villain and the villain’s plot,

people toiling, no choice really

but to breathe. Going home?

asks the woman in the middle seat.

Sorry? I say, and she gestures:

never mind. No one is in the mood.

The truth? I never cared much.

Saw myself sitting stoic as the plane

plummeted through empty sky.

Hand pressed to my still-hollow center,

I can feel the cut of my own lie.

Of course I’m in love with being alive.




Kelsi Lindus is a writer and filmmaker living in the Puget Sound. Her work has appeared in, or is forthcoming from, X-R-A-Y, Lost Balloon, Rejection Letters, Brave Voices, and elsewhere. She can be found online @kelsijayne or kelsilindus.com.


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