palace of winds

From above Chicago looks like a glorious little model, clouds rolling in off the lake and drifting around the city’s skyscrapered fingers. We bank left and I sit with my head resting beside the little window, the sun warming my face, and I watch the shadow of our plane skating across buildings below, slipping over houses and the thick grey ribbon of interstate where I hope Stephanie. And I wait for the houses to ripple into sand dunes, to become like skin, our shadow the dark shape of a body swimming a far-off desert. But then we are over a real expanse of blue, and higher still to an endless world of white.