Bio
Caitlin O’Halloran is a biracial Filipino-American poet living in Rochester, New York. She has a Bachelor of Arts from Boston University in Philosophy and History. Her work has been published in Vast Chasm Magazine, Midsummer Dream House, and Apricity Magazine.
Trigger Warning
If humans grew wings, hordes of people
would flock to see the wonders of the world.
The Eiffel Tower in Paris,
the Colosseum in Rome,
now in reach for those
who could never afford it before.
Governments would station officers
on patrol for public safety,
to temper the rampant desires of the fold.
With rifles at their sides,
they’d stand between the docents selling
timed tickets for one hundred dollars a pop.
If humans had wings, it wouldn’t be long
before they built tollbooths in the sky.
What was once everyone’s air now divided
into tiers. The rich could pay
for access to the highest altitudes
and greater ease of movement,
away from the traffic jams below.
If humans had wings, what was once a miracle
would soon become mundane.
Flying would be another fact of life,
an annoyance at times,
another mode of transportation
from home to work and back again.