They chopped our skyscrapers down like trees because planes kept clipping their wings on the too-tall buildings. Sorry, said the city, and then our downtown was felled.

The problem was that our city bled into the airport. Our houses curled round the terminals and we watched stern businessmen call taxis from our front yards. And our school was right by the runway, so that when we walked between classes our hair blew in the jet stream. Eventually, they made us stop playing on the football field—said a plane might land there by mistake. But once a janitor forgot to switch off the stadium lights at night and a red-eye from China descended, slowing to a gentle roll at the fifty-yard mark. The businessmen tumbled onto the Astro-Terf, their eyes thick with sleep, their briefcases haphazard. We found them there still in the morning. So we guided them home, one by one.