My Paper Planes Poem Kenneth Wee ★

Sometimes I imagine the planes as older selves—boys, kitchens, trains— unfolding into new air. Sometimes they are apologies that lighten as they go, or declarations given wings so they won’t be trapped inside my chest. They know by instinct how to find cracks: gutters, open windows, the hollow between two roofs. They are small boats on wind, paper sailors with fragile courage.

When the moon is a thin coin, I fold one from an old photograph and send it out with a wish I can’t say twice. It stutters, then steadies, and in the silver hush I think: to travel is to risk being reshaped. My paper planes have torn edges and ink smudges; they come back changed, and when they don’t return, I like to think they found new hands to teach. my paper planes poem kenneth wee

I launch them from the sill at dusk, when the streetlamps flicker awake and the cats argue about corners. They catch the last heat of the day and lift on borrowed breaths, tracing lazy arcs above laundry lines and sleeping porches. Neighbors below murmur like ocean glass; a dog barks somewhere and my planes tip, wobble, then find a surprising steadiness. Sometimes I imagine the planes as older selves—boys,