At my window seat in an airliner
high over what I supposed was Nevada
I look out at the left wing pointing
in the direction I assumed to be south.
On the wing I see rows of rivets
attaching silver skin to ribs and spars
by workers I preferred to imagine
were well-adjusted women
and well-contented men
forcing rivets into holding patterns.
I think of the last time I used aluminum,
how easily the foil crushed after cooking
fish fillets wrapped in 0.63 mils
of aluminum to protect them
from the fire’s destruction
as the airplane’s 0.038 inch thick wrapper
protects me from subzero oxygen thin air.