"it is similar to all others"
Word count: 263
Paragraphs: 2
the kind of disturbance that comes up when flying
over a kind of disturbance that startled: believe it
s called "turbulence" and occurs when flying over
turb and slowed down by excess that is the kind of
f over viewed out the tiny window shuttered in plastic
as though in a giant plastic wrap when believe it oh
y believe it like finding a bottle of bleach under yr seat
disturbance that follows always the exact same pattern
except plastic does not set when stirred by an unexpected
viewing and does not conform to usual "turbulence" excess
that comes up when flying and from that from that startled
as almost incoherent it’s a kind of startled believe slow ed
jumping out of one’s seat when believe it as though in a giant
plastic pod staring out of the tiny window see that pattern
unexpected what s a what surprise like finding a bottle
each day you fly in and disturb me each day you take advant
each exemption does not set when comforted under yr
loopholes off-shore that pattern a river forms when kept frm
water held tightly within when water is kept from when a river
is kept from the ocean when a river is kept from the ocean
it forms a pattern it forms a pattern it forms a pattern similar
Marcella Durand’s next book, The Temple of Happiness, is forthcoming from Black Square Editions fall 2026. Her book, A Winter Triangle, received the 2024 Poetic Justice Institute Prize (Fordham University Press, 2025). She is the co-editor with Jennifer Firestone of Other Influences: The Untold History of Avant-Garde Feminist Poetry (MIT Press, 2024).