Airplane

We flew to the west side of the country during the second deep cold snap of the year. It had snowed the day before and when I brought a 1/2 empty tea mug up from the barn in the morning, the little liquid that spilled on my coat front immediately froze.
....
The drive to the airport was always ethereal to me, the stark, vast fields stretching forever from the mountains' base, the cattle lost in the starkness, interspersed with alien fracking drills.  Once, when you drove me to catch a flight to visit my family in the fall, we saw birds, thousands of them on wind and land, churning the sky. We had never seen so many.  Even today, in the cold that made everything steam, the road, our breath, car exhaust, flights of small birds cut the air in their magical, morphic  precision.
....
Before take off, a machine I'd never seen blew white liquid on the wing. A man sat in a small glass booth and you took pictures. Flying west we had perpetual sunset, the horizon an ardent crimson line fading to orange and gold and finally blue, light where venus rested, into darker indigo and almost black high above when I pressed my skin against the cold glass window.

You would caress my face sometimes, which I had never experienced before.  At first, it was so new I was unsure, but now my hear dared beating, the gesture was so precious. Even in the plane, so many people around and me normally shy, I didn't mind.

Before we had packed, you lay wrapped in a towel on the bed, pipe in one hand, phone in the other.  I busied around the room in tank top and sweat pants, cleaning so we could come home to order. I could feel you watching me and when I stopped, you smiled and said, "I like watching you be busy."
....
Time as a line is an illusion our small minds haven't solved yet. I write in the past tense even though your hand rests on my leg and I can see the gradient sky and tiny land hundred of feet below. These long ago now moments resonate with my mind-imposed meaning. I would travel in words forever back to that day, each small detail wrapped in love and affection, devotion and tenderness.