He had them tattooed
on his hand and they fly
before the blue curtain
spreading their wings
swooping like airplanes
floating mid-flight.
He soars as he speaks
his childhood dream—
to follow his father
in a country whose name
he cannot pronounce correctly.
He stretches beside me like the sea
and I listen to the undulation
of water in his breaths,
his chest rising and falling
in the manner the birds
glide in his stories.
There will not be many          
to where he is going.
I only think of him
not beside me, lost
in the trade winds.
To end the drifting and perch
on a tree, like how his hand
now rests on my chest—
Why do they seek places
where they cannot sleep?
Why do they always fly away?