Why is it that whenever I want to catch a flight
another bird comes tumbling down

and no one ever knows what happened
because no one ever owns that airspace

so word of wreckage
trickles in through tweet
or live feed

like the digital equivalent
of what rescue teams must find
as they approach crash scenes

which can stretch for miles,
and sometimes all they’ve got is a smudge
of stained sea on a print off
from a satellite dish.

Only a picture taken from so far away
could bear so little
resemblance to what’s down here
on earth where things are born
and eat and f__k and die;

where we’ve got paint chips and wires and snapped safety belts
and there’s no difference between champagne
bottles and window panes ’cause it’s all just broken
glass, and torn up diaries
and sun-cream and
who knows what else

but it’s all spread out
like god’s having a big spring clean

and it’s clear as an empty sky

that no excuse that’s good enough
will ever fit in that small black box.